A very powerful new Dervish Build: D/A Sand sharder

[windforcex]

I just discovered this one. It does huge damage, and is very fun. :afro:

Key skill is "Sand Shards": At lvl 16 earth prayer, it does 26 damage to every nearby foe whenever you failed to hit with an attack.

To make sure u fail to hit, just use any duel-attack skills of Asn. For example: "Horn of ox". It NEVER hits if not following a off-hand attack. And it still does a DUEL swing. So, with "Sand Shards" on you, every time u click "Horn of ox", U do 26+26=52 damage to EVERY nearby foe. And since the "Horn of ox" never hits, it has NO RECHARGE TIME. So you can spam it every second. That means, you do 52 damage per second to every nearby foe as long as you have the energy to spam "Horn of ox".

To supply your energy, all you need to do is get high mysticism, and do the "Shadow refuge"-"Meditation" combo every 8 sec. You will never run out of energy if u do it right.

Until now, you only need 4 skills for this build, and NO elite skill is needed. So, besides the rez sig, you still got 3 empty slots to put on any thing you like.

This build is going to be insanely over -owered in both PVP and PVE if they dont nerf it. :azn:

[Rustin]

crazy idea, i like it

[takplayer]

wow. that's quite ingenious. I'll have to try it out.

[Beta Sprite]

Betcha this will be 'fixed' by release. Better use it while it's still good. =)

[WingspanTT]

I was just going to suggest Signet of Midnight, but I guess this is better. How about this plus, say, BLINDED CYCLONE AXE!?!?

[Kjentei]

Betcha this will be 'fixed' by release. Better use it while it's still good. =)

Definetly, I predict that it'll be nerfed to: Damage caused by missing attacks and fully recharged/adrenalised attack skills.

[Psychotic]

Add in Avatar of Dwayna or Avatar of Grenth and your pretty much unstopable with this build.
This is the skillbar i've used:
Avatar of Dwayna
Horns of the Ox
Sand Shard
Shadow Refuge
Meditation
Res Sig
Convocation
I can't remember the name of the last skill... but its the one that heals you if your health drops below 50%.

With avatar of dwayna, you gain 41 health and lose a hex every time you activate a skill. Using horns(whether it works or not) counts as activating a skill. That means every time you attack, you gain 41 health, lose 1 hex, and do 50 AoE unresistable damage. You get +24 Armor from convocation, and shadowrefuge + meditation help with healing as well as energy management.

[erolla]

@ up

just revision

conviction
not convocation

[Bickety Bam]

Much better is to up Deadly arts and just use WotEmpty Palm

[Roalin]

But Horns of the ox has a recharge of 12 seconds...

[Kay Four]

But Horns of the ox has a recharge of 12 seconds...

If you read the OP carefully, since Horns of the Ox fails to hit, it has instant recharge. Hence the spammability of it.

[Some Dude]

That is actually an extremely cool build. You rule! Gonna go unlock some skills right now.

[erolla]

btw. why dont use way of the empty palm, and the spam the horn of the ox:D

[dEAthCAb]

hey man i just wanted to say congrats on the great build!

i just have one problem that for some reason the second attack of my Horns always misses, which is very annoying as i only do 22 damage at a time.

the other thing is... how did u get your earth to 16, as you can only unlock minor runes for the dervish and paragon?

thx in advance
dEAthCAb

[Cirdan Ecthelion]

You don't, he's just saying that's how much it would do at 16.

[Fafner]

I think something like might be able to be abused for IW as well. Simple solution will be to apply the full recharge (or a minimum of 1-2 sec like ranger skills) whether it connects or not.

I think this would be a reasonable fix.

[Psychotic]

don't really need WotEP. it might help... but has high recharge and the survivability if you use Avatar of Dwayna or the enchantment stripping if you use Avatar of Grenth is just unrivaled.

[dEAthCAb]

Ok well has anybody tested the build to prove that it *can* do dual strike when it doesnt hit, or is it stuck on doing damage from one strike [at a maximum of 25 or so]?

[Antonio Enigma]

saw one at a AB was getting off 21 very very fast

weak against one person tho

[Psychotic]

yes, it works just as they describe it.

[tarutaru]

It work just as described. However I have a few changes myself:

D/A
13 Mysticism
15 Earth Prayers
6 Shadow Arts

Avatar of Dwayna
Exhausting Assault
Sand Shard
Shadow Refuge
Meditation
Conviction
Signet of Piety
Res Sig

I found that I like Exhausting Assault more than Horns. Also, Signet of Piety can heal you from near death to full health if used correctly, so I have it on pretty much every Dervish build I create.

[Furinto]

Dear Anet,

Please disregard this thread.

Thanks. :)

[Buddah]

Dervish has a date with the nerf bat.

Even at 8 Mystism the energy gain is emense in the right builds.

[Walker]

dont know if any tested it but i was wondering: you deal damage every second, lyssa's avatar deals extra damage if u hit an enemy using a skill, wouldn't u seriously increase your damage because at the speed your spamming attacks theres a good chance u hit an enemy while hes using a skill

like i said i havent tested this out but i was wondering if sand shards would trigger the effect of lyssa's avatar

EDIT tested it shards doesnt trigger lyssas avatar's efect :sad:

[blahteeb]

Pretty sure by the time release, the Assasin's attack will hit, but just with normal damage. That would solve the problem.

-BlahTeeb-

[Darris]

I hit TA with my RA group, took down a dual smite TA build and a KD team only to get spanked by a Sand Shards assassin group. After losing and coming into the TA build area I saw at least 3 shouts of "Sand Shards D lf 2 more for Sand Shard group" and "Shards *** LF group" and "Sandy group lf monk"

Think this will see the fluffy bat? I hope so :)

[GodHead]

I think I found the biggest exploit in the game. I brought it up last night on Guild Wars Guru here: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10012747 and all the other posts I've seen have only been made today after it ***** TA, RA and HA.

Of course I forgot that they automatically recharge if you miss, so you only need Exhausting Assault.

Don't expect it to outlast the weekend.

[JasonLa]

Sand Shards is broken. I had 3 lines of -15 (sand shards) appear on my screen for 3-4 seconds. This is about 15 occurances of the number shown continuous for the 3-4 seconds. It was me vs a single dervish. I had 560 health which means that the speed was boosted to 10+ attacks per second and all the attacks missed? As far as I understand its not possible to boost a character attack speed that fast due to attack speed cap. I smell a broken skill.

[GodHead]

It's just Exhausting Assault without an Offhand Attack on you.

It misses twice every 1/2 a second, and with Way of the Empty Palm, it costs no energy.

[windforcex]

I hit TA with my RA group, took down a dual smite TA build and a KD team only to get spanked by a Sand Shards assassin group. After losing and coming into the TA build area I saw at least 3 shouts of "Sand Shards D lf 2 more for Sand Shard group" and "Shards *** LF group" and "Sandy group lf monk"

Think this will see the fluffy bat? I hope so :)

lol. This thing is spreading faster then I expected.
When I was testing it last night, all my teamates in RA thought I was a either a noob or a hacker.

[Servant of Kali]

I saw at least 3 shouts of "Sand Shards D lf 2 more for Sand Shard group" and "Shards *** LF group" and "Sandy group lf monk"

Oh joy.....

[windforcex]

btw. why dont use way of the empty palm, and the spam the horn of the ox:D

Empty palm is a cool idea, give you better offense. But you will lose the defense abilities from the Mys line. I preferred Mys line in my OP since I did my original tests in RA last night. But I could expect Empty palm works better in TA since you will have a monk to support you.

[windforcex]

Pretty sure by the time release, the Assasin's attack will hit, but just with normal damage. That would solve the problem.

-BlahTeeb-

Actually, the easiest way to balance this is to make sure that Assasin's duel attack skills have a recharge time, even if it totally failed. Or, they could make it so that you just cant use the duel attack skills unless you use an offhand first.

Sand shards by itself is fine, 26 damage is not much. Actually I think sand shards is a well designed fun skill. The key of overpower is the super fast duel attack spamming. As long as they can fix this, other sand shards builds wont be stronger than touch rangers.

[Secksi Kitten]

Goodbye A/D, D/A

Fixed by ANet. Rofl, pwnt.

[MrRock]

Yup. I just spent 10k faction only to get it immediately nerfed.

[tarutaru]

Let me be the first to say Congrats to the OP, windforcex.
And why, you might ask? Because not only have A/D's and D/A's taken HA by storm in the last few hours (with the exact build setups listed on these pages), but Esoteric Warriors just rolled several gvg fights in a row by using 2 D/A's. Their setup was as follows:

Way of the Empty Palm
Exhausting Assault
Sand Shard
Shadow Refuge

The other four skills rotated with every battle. Obviously they were trying different combos. Most frequent were self-enchants (probly with some points in mysticism) and 'sin Deadly/Shadow art hexes designed to snare/slow the target. Highlight of my viewing experience was one fight versus some rank200 team, in which during the first encounter all it took was 10 seconds flat for the entire team to be wiped out. Overpowered? I think so. I don't believe the nerf will be too harsh though. Increased recharge on Sand Shard is a must. And probably a re-wording so that the spammability isn't possible.

[Magnus Khaine]

Good, Justice Served.

[tarutaru]

Well then. Let it be said this was the now first-fastest nerf Anet has ever done. The second of course being the famed Flesh Golem factory nerf. RIP dervish sins, RIP.

[windforcex]

Well then. Let it be said this was the now first-fastest nerf Anet has ever done. The second of course being the famed Flesh Golem factory nerf. RIP dervish sins, RIP.

How did they fix it? I am still at work so I cant check myself. :sad:

[Erasculio]

How did they fixed it? I am still at work so I cant check myself.
Now Sand Shards only works for missed scythe attacks.

Very great job, Arena Net :smiley:

Erasculio

[Bickety Bam]

IMO it was much better as an A/D build anyway. With a 20% mod you could keep up WotEP 98% of the time.

Shame (actually good job lol), but at least I made the most of it :)

[windforcex]

Now Sand Shards only works for missed scythe attacks.

Very great job, Arena Net :smiley:

Erasculio

This is sad. It basically ruled out many interesting possiblities to use Sand Shards on other classes like warrior and assasin. Those classes get blind, block, evade all the time.
But maybe this is the fastest way to fix this for now. I hope they can change it back at release and just fix the duel attack spammings.

[windforcex]

Along this line. Another thing u can still do is to use this idea with IW.
Using Me/A, spamming duel attack can do a sudden spike with IW on.
But Mes doesnt have a way to get energy back like D. And IW prevented you to bring Empty palm.
So you cant spam it all the time with IW, but you can still spike.
Another things are, the chance of duel attack from dagger works with IW. And shadow refuge is better then healing sig with some fast cast.
So, taking together, Me/A is better than Me/W at IW. Enjoy. :wave:

[ShinyOne]

Along this line. Another thing u can still do is to use this idea with IW.
Using Me/A, spamming duel attack can do a sudden spike with IW on.
But Mes doesnt have a way to get energy back like D. And IW prevented you to bring Empty palm.
So you cant spam it all the time with IW, but you can still spike.
Another things are, the chance of duel attack from dagger works with IW. And shadow refuge is better then healing sig with some fast cast.
So, taking together, Me/A is better than Me/W at IW. Enjoy. :wave:

actually, IW shouldn't trigger sand shards, because IW fighters do hit, it's just that the weapon dmg is reduced to 0. no miss, no shards.

edit: err, sorry. forget it... just saw you were talking about Me/A, not Me/D :embarassed: :grin:

[shamed]

Wow, on top of nerfing the skill, the build of Guild Wars that included pre-nerf Sand Shards discontinued being supported by ANet's servers i.e. you couldn't stay in the game to abuse it; you had to exit immediately if you wanted to PvP. Previously, old builds were up for a while so that you could continue playing if you were in the middle of something.

It was really really overpowered to have provoked that reaction from ANet. Considering Diversion would have no effect on Exhausting Assault spam, Sand Shards recharges in 5 seconds thus being highly resistant to enchant stripping and Dark Escape is not ended by failed Exhausting Assaults, I can see why. I was bringing along Expunge Enchantments just to counter that build slightly.

I was prepared to just stop PvP for the weekend since it's not fun testing things when all you'll see is -21 (Sand Shards) in your face, but now I'm happily at it again =)

Now all that's left in HA are teams runing CoPing D/Mos. Fun.

[MaximumSquid]

Dervish has a date with the nerf bat.

Even at 8 Mystism the energy gain is emense in the right builds. hehe yep.

I saw a few people running the setup earlier today, but I never got to witness it's true glory =/

Most people were running the premades which have these extremely pretictable attack chains so i've been interupting most of the day.

The few people I did see run this just got blasted.

Great build though

/my two cents

[Soul Calibur]

I'm happy they nerfed it just before I was gonna spend my faction on getting the skills :)

[Westberg]

i just used all my faction on the skills right before they nerfed it.. :cry:

[logik]

oops, nm apperantly it has been mentioned already lol