Grenth's Onslaught, a discourse on Onlsaught and Grenth's Aura

Avison

Avison

Academy Page

Join Date: Nov 2010

D/Mo

I've been exploring the relationship of lifesteals armor ignoring damage and an increased attack speed modifier. I was originally trying to combine Avatar of Grenth, Grenth's Aura, and a handful of IAS's to create a super sexy life stealing fast attacking Grenth lookalike monstrausity.

I more recently have been trying Onslaught with Grenth's Aura while combining it with with Mystic Vigor.

The results, for pvp so far, have been me being more or less unkillable by three players all focusing on me.


After experimenting with Grenth's Aura, Onslaught, and Mystic Vigor I'm quite satisfied with the combo. The amount of damage on average dealt to opponents is superior to an Avatar of Grenth and Grenth's Aura build. Mostly because recasting flash enchantments doesn't stop your melee animation early, the only thing you need to worry about is applying Mystic Vigor. I can usually protect Mystic Vigor by dropping a Shield of Force and casting when my opponent is on the ground.

As for pvp, in RA and Jade Quarry I've been using the rest of my slots for different utility. The quarry needs me to be a wee bit faster that 25% to tag the point in the beginning so sometimes I slot a skill just for that. I also need cripple for utility. In addition, I am a Dervish, so I should be taking out archer spawns and capping them while harassing players and carriers... so I needed some aoe as an initial burst when hitting archer spawns.

So far I've been running this in the quarry:
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With:
Scythe Mastery 9+1
Earth Prayers 3+1
Mysticism 9+2
Wind Prayers 12

And full Wind Walkers.

It isn't nearly as efficient as it could be, the runes are just what I happened to have, and almost everything in that build is selective utility for the Jade Quarry as the basic combo more or less covers damage and healing. One problem I've had is killing my opponents but dying after from degeneration, so I threw a Mystic Regeneration in there just for that.

thetwistedboy

thetwistedboy

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Aug 2009

I live right there, see?

Apostles of Oblivion

W/Mo

I support the idea of experimentation, especially when it leads away from the Meta. The Meta is created by those who are unorthodox and decide to try new things. Case in point, EFGjack. He decided to not use three necros and his team is quite frankly better than Sabway/Discordway/Spiritway. So stamping out new things doesn't actually help anything. Besides, if his build isn't as effective as the Meta one with AoG, then he will realize that. He was asking for suggestions to improve, I believe, not criticism for deciding to not be a sheep.

Avison

Avison

Academy Page

Join Date: Nov 2010

D/Mo

I've been mainly using this for Jade Quarry and Onslaught was nice for bar compression and never needing to cast an Avatar meant I could bring more utility for the insane crap people bring there.

But yes, I was more or less asking for a way to improve this build. The basic concept was there but I'm not fully aware of the available skill base as I've only restarted playing after I left sometime after Nightfall. All in all, from what I've seen and done, I've had no trouble diving into a lord pit or capping spawns on the quarry while taking fire from 3 players and 4 or 5 npcs.

That in and off itself seems nerf worthy. I guess there is a reason why half the players I see these days are Dervishes.

Kyp Jade

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Aug 2006

USA

Lack of Talent [Luck]

P/

Half of the players you see are playing dervish because of the update, its new. Same with the rit and mesmer update. Once the newness dies off only the people who really like the changes will stick with it. But since dervish is more fun than mesmer and rits since its a melee/support class now, I suspect a lot of people will stick with it.

I still see too many damn ritualists

Xenomortis

Xenomortis

Tea Powered

Join Date: May 2008

UK

N/

Serves me right for not fully reading.

Jcpsr

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jun 2006

AW

Rt/Me

I found that in alot of PVE area's grenths aura causes my scythe attacks(at 15 points in scythe mastery) to do no dmg from physical attacks and only lifestealing instead.

Because of this I decided to not even put points into Scythe Mastery since its damage will negated anyways and instead load them all into Wind prayers and Mysticism along with putting "Flurry" into my bar since it doesnt reduce the dmg of lifesteals but increases attack speed to 33% without the need to charge adrenaline for "heart of fury" or use the elite skill "Onslaught".

With Avatar of Grenth and Grenth Aura + Vamp Scythe I do 44 life steal per hit and with flurry its a good attack speed. In addition my enchants cost barely any energy and I built my build into a tanking build based on enchants and rapid lifesteal attacks.

There is a big downside to this, it can be waste in a area's where foes have weaker armor like Faction Campaign VQs where your' better offer using a Vow of strength build.

Our Virus

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2011

The Capital [Para]

P/

I prefer the OP's build because his elite (Onslaught) is being used instead of three other skills. Opens up the bar with 2 more skills. Plus, you get adrnl faster with onslaught or more skill spam. With the extra skillslots you can bring blocking skills; a dervish that can only be killed by squishy is lol, you will easily kill 4 of them first

thetwistedboy

thetwistedboy

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Aug 2009

I live right there, see?

Apostles of Oblivion

W/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post
EFGJack's H+H teams may be effective, but "unorthodox" they are not. It's just tank-n-spank, done really, really well. I didn't say that the builds were unorthodox, I said that he decided to be. I haven't seen anyone else try to do what he's done and then risked be ridiculed by playing differently by sharing it.

In all honesty, his teams are pretty unorthodox because you don't see a warrior cornerblocking a mob while microing his heroes to kill everything in a couple seconds. Well, with that being said, it's more his play style that is unorthodox...

pingu666

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2006

guildhall

[DETH]

ive been a warrior and asked to go "full tank" and during that dungeon only twice did people actully allow me to tank properly :/

Cuilan

Cuilan

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2008

Me/

Next time point out the game's mechanics without the AI targets and how your group has minions+spirits+Ebon assassins. It's what I do and it almost always works if they don't get a simple "tank builds are worthless."

Mike Jack

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2011

A place where people like to emo bond.

[EMO]

E/Mo

Not only that, most of the PuG "tanks" run Defy+Endure Pain with random tactic skills. This makes the AI target them even less because of high health and defense.