Onslaught vs Avatar teardowns...

Hey everyone

I've been messing around on my dervish (re: the recent update, same old story blah blah blah) from a purely pve basis I wondered what people's opinions were on onslaught builds vs avatar builds??

Teardown is a lot of fun, especially with avatars now geared towards extra incentives for teardown based joy. But then again seeing my derv hacking away at a ridiculously speedy pace is mega funsies...and syncs pretty well with Physway hero set up...mmmm decisions decisions :P

I'd also really love some feedback on these builds, (currently my favourite to run in pve )



1. Generic onslaught/wind prayers, lots of IAS and IMS, lots of scythey attacky goodness. - probably sub in faithful intervention for eternal aura...I just use it as a fail safe :P
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2. Avatar teardown - I've used balth here for the fire but I'd say it works with any avatar...people have their own preferences after all and yes I know it isn't a "proper PR" teardown build, but I find it a bit more interesting to play around with
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3. another avatar teardown - again I've used dwayna for party healing, but yeh, reckon you can interchange depending on how aggressive/defensive you want to go.
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Helpful comments very welcome (trolling less appreciated...I am aware my builds aren't the ultimate in efficient meta-ness but I think they're fun )

Peace and love x

Since onslaught provides a 25% ias i don't think you need Heart of Fury. I also think SY! is a must in an onslaught bar with free secondary prof. Finally Whirling Charge @ 9 wind isn't your best option maybe get another scythe attack or a pve skill?

SY is mandatory in the Onslaught an AoB bars, thanks to increased adren gain(WA can find a spot too).

I'm not a fan of Eternal tbh, the party res shouldn't never be necessary with right teams, and the healt/surviving buff can be easily afforded using Intimidating Aura(60 sec, cast and forget). Freeing a PvE skill slot too.

Rest of flashench and attacks is really highly moddable, can't say what's better.

Yeah I'm not sure you understand the purpose of onslaught... it's so you don't need to spend slots on IAS/IMS... they won't stack anyway. You should really abuse some powerful adren skills as well like wearying and twin moon strike.

Thanks for the suggestions fellas, -facepalm- moment re: heart of fury :P... as for SY...I hate it but I suppose the reason it's meta is cos it's handy and OPed :P I probably will end up swapping it in at some point...

But I wanted to know what people thought about onslaught vs avatar builds as well? (not necessarily mine, but as a group of builds kinda thing)

Imo?

Onslaught is probably one of the most powerful bar-compression skills.
I mean: Flash (no cast time) + IAS + IMS + Adren Gain + maintenable + reasonable energy cost.......... GOGOGOGO Onslaught + 7 attack skill/ench!

Avatars are useful only when your team can actually take advantage of effects of ench juggling on you (eg. AoB + Searing flames / AoD + Minions to heal them w/o sacrifice skills / AoM vs heavy cond etc).
The cons is that Avatar requires 2-3 ench(low recharge/cost) and 2-3 attack/teardown to work at max efficiency. Which cut the possible variations compared to Onslaught.

My 2 cents.

P.S: the reason SY is a must for any meele which can go /W (or is W obviously :P ) is that gives a uninterruptable/unstrippable/most powerful protection versus any armor respectin dmg. And in Hm this will cut the ele/physical heavy dmg by 80%ish....too good to be ignored in general pve.

For me you have missed one of the most powerful avatar builds Av of grenth you don't need healing in certain aspects you can release conditions on your self and also zap there health away in a flash

So for me Avatar of Grenth will always be my choice and it gets you away from the fake imba guy who yells SY like a nutter all the time.

And another great elite wounding strike very strong with physway and racway.

Then you have VoS gimmick which is like 100b not as good but another decent choice.

My point I'm trying to make is do not limit your self to 3 avatars and Onslaught there's a reason why people are using there dervish's now there utterly powerful.

Mine where examples based on the OP, never said those were the only viable elites for pve :P.

P.S: WS and AoG are considered more pvp oriented thought.

Av of grenth is pretty fit...<3 buuuuut if we're talking teardown builds grenth's "apply disease" is sucky compared to support (cond removal/healing) or balthy's fire :P
I have to say I think I'll agree that onslaught is probably more flexible, therefore more fun. Plus Onslaught + Grenths aura...is like a better AoG imho... without having to commit to teardowns.

VoS+SS as a replacement/supplement 100b...can't say I massively enjoy... I mean I saw a fun looking one that went D/A for shadow stepping. Let the 100b tank and take the aggro then ziiiing VoS+SS spikey spikey then ziiiing away again if needed :P The only thing is I don't like the overly sensitive AI scatter from shards. It's manageable with "None shall pass" (massively under rated skill...) or an aura of thorns drop... but still annoying.

SY still annoys the hell out of me :P Obviously I can see it's useful, I know why people use it but to me it's ridiculously OPed...plus backliners shouldn't be anywhere near aggro anyway >.> /tangent xD

So your predicament is something that has been occupying my thoughts too.

Onslaught: For PvP I could see it since the extra IMS is good. As for PvE...well, I found I generally don't need it and there are better IAS like: Heart of fury or Pious Fury or the best one, drunken Master

The other option I tried was Pious Renewal/Aura of holy might and a whole slew of teardown attacks. It was good, but boring and it relied on AoHM not getting stripped or stopped in some way. I liked it...but ended up going back to my avatar builds.

As for those, i ran Balthazar for a LONG time...since the update came out

I loved the 5 seconds of burning and the extra armor and adrenaline. I ran heavy on earth prayers with Mystic Sandstorm, sand shards thorns and staggering and it worked pretty well.

I recently switched though to my favorite setup:

Avatar of Grenth
Pious assault
Twin Moon S
heart of fury
Zealous renewal
Heart of holy flame
Balthazar's rage
Aura of Holy might

Now...not only do I still have almost constant burning, but I have disease on top in addition to a 11/per health steal. With a focus on just mysticism and scythe, the base damage from normal attacks is higher and enchantments are that much lower (zealous R gives a free +2 energy). Balthazar's rage fuels TMS and the heart of fury.

I was running "i am the strongest" but I replaced it with AoHM...which just put the build over the top...She's a machine now. TMS syncs incredibly well with Grenth too ( with vampiric mod, you hit twice unblockable gain around 150 health and deal two hits+35...a beast)

I sometimes put Vow of Piety in the bar, but it really needs 3 enchantments (of 10s recharge each) to fuel constant disease. Extra armor is nice....but it loses some offense and I am not sure if its the right move yet.

Onslaught, AoB, and AoG may be ruling PvP with an iron fist right now, but they suffer from major problems in PvE.

Onslaught's IMS is barely worth considering, it's IAS can be replicated with other skills, and the adrenaline is only a +33% increase (FGJ is far better). Sure, it offers bar compression, but not that much, at least compared to the monster that is Pious Renewal (but we'll get to that later).

The extra offense granted by AoG and AoB is certainly powerful, but this must be weighed against the following disadvantages:

1) The skills can only be used to their full potential when you're using at least one flash enchantment per three seconds. Since flash enchantments have long recharge times, you'll need at least two for this (assuming you go with the ones that have 6 seconds recharges), which will be just enough to spam Pious Assault on recharge. This leads into...

2) Bar decompression. This is a problem because it forces you to choose between damage, deep wound, energy management, and SY spam. You don't have enough bar space for all of them.

3) Energy costs. Flash enchantments that recharge quickly enough to do what AoB and AoG need are expensive. Just the use of two 6 sec recharge flash enchantments to fuel Pious Assault on recharge will make you run out of energy in less than 20 seconds. This necessitates sacrificing damage by using a zealous scythe instead of a vampiric one, sacrificing a precious skill slot for energy management (see problem #2), or just letting your dps turn to crap in the last part of the battle by running out of energy mid-fight.

4) You can't utilize physical damage synergies.

5) Pious Spam, unlike AoB and AoG, CAN have its cake and eat it too. It can deal lots of damage, inflict deep wound, and spam SY. AoB and AoG builds can do 2 of the 3, but not all of them. Furthermore, there's nothing preventing a Pious Spam build from further specializing in damage or whatnot, adding even more damage (whereas an AoG or AoB build runs into problem #3). Finally, Pious Spam allows you to deal physical damage.

When you get right down to it, Pious Renewal saves you at least 3 skill slots. It's like having 3-4 flash enchantments on your bar plus meditation, all in one skill. The combination of power and utility that allows you to have is massive.

The main use I see for AoG and AoB right now in PvE is as Reap Impurities fuel. But since most of the time you're only going to be hitting one target anyway (unless you're in one of those specialized areas that calls for dedicated multiple target builds, in which case you shouldn't be using avatars to begin with), and RI doesn't do anything for single targets, their usefulness is limited.

AoD, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal, with an entirely different purpose (healing + damage). Even if one doesn't have minions, I would consider this to be an elite well worth taking, simply for the sheer power of its party heals.

Quote: Originally Posted by Josiphos I recently switched though to my favorite setup:

Avatar of Grenth
Pious assault
Twin Moon S
heart of fury
Zealous renewal
Heart of holy flame
Balthazar's rage
Aura of Holy might
Hehe I've been using pretty much the exact build (minus AoHM...my derv's not made it to factions yet >.< so fleeting stablity for me until then :P)

Quote: Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The thing to remember about PR in your case, I'd say, is that the skill is so robust you can bring a wide variety of skills (and change them out constantly). Anything that says "removes one dervish enchantment" will work well with it.

Pious is a decent build but it seems a little overrated, it's the only thing people seem to run. Other builds will average ~10 DPS less vs a stationary target, but benefits of cracked armor, run boost (getting to foes before your 7H explode them is relevant in my book), nearby AoE, or other utility are not zero value, and that's what you give up for the compression of PR. PR doesn't really pull out that far ahead unless your entire team is built around exploiting TMS spam.

10 dps is a lot now in the post-asuran scan days.

Cracked Armor should be being applied by other members of the party (necromancers in particular, are far better at it). Nevertheless, there's nothing preventing a Pious Spam dervish from bringing cracked armor. A couple of my variants do just that.

But yes, FGJ+TMS+Dark Fury is scarily good.