Any reviews of the Dervish elites?

[NeferJackal]

There have been reviews of most of the new elites in Nightfall with their current stats, including Paragon ones. So where is the Dervish elite review? I am curious to what you guys thinks of the elites you have been dealth. So far the consensus for Paragons is that their elites is fairly mediocre.

You Dervishes have many intriguing looking and promising elites with unique twists on them, so whats the verdict on them?

Reaper's Sweep seems like a quite nasty and reliable scythe elite in my eyes. But I may be uninformed and would like to know what the oppinion is on things.

[Erasculio]

You Dervishes have many intriguing looking and promising elites with unique twists on them, so whats the verdict on them?

Zingeri, who made some of the other Elite reviews, mentioned (more or less, and if I remember it as he said it) how he believes that most (if not all) of the Dervish Elites are bad.

I'm not as inteligent as he is (or as you are :laugh:), so I'll just list the current Elites (with numbers from 0 to 12 in the relevant attribute) and show how they were in the PvP preview:

Earth Prayers

Sandy Grip: For 30 seconds, if you are wielding an earth weapon, your attack skills also cause Blindness for 4...9 seconds.
Energy cost: 5
Casting time: 1/4
Recharge: 20 seconds

New

Vow of Strength: For 10 seconds, you cannot use attack skills and your attacks deal 5...17% more damage.
Energy cost: 5
Casting time: 1/4
Recharge: 20

New

Mysticism

Arcane Zeal: For 10 seconds, whenever you cast a Spell, you gain 1 Energy for each Enchantment on you (maximum 1...6 Energy).
Energy cost: 10
Casting time: 1
Recharge: 5

Maximum energy gained used to be 5...6 energy, not 1...6)

Avatar of Balthazar: For 1...48 seconds, you gain +40 armor, you move 33% faster, and your attacks deal holy damage. This skill is disabled for 120 seconds.
Energy cost: 15
Casting time: 2
Recharge: 10

Energy cost was 5, recharge was 5

Avatar of Dwayna: For 1...48 seconds, whenever you use a skill, you gain 5...41 Health and lose 1 Hex. This skill is disabled for 120 seconds.
Energy cost: 10
Casting time: 2
Recharge: 10

Recharge was 5, and the health again has been increased - it used to cap at 41 health at level 16, not level 12.

Avatar of Grenth: For 1...48 seconds, whenever you use an attack skill, you also remove one Enchantment from your target, and your attacks deal cold damage. This skill is disabled for 120 seconds.
Energy cost: 10
Casting time: 2
Recharge: 10

Recharge was 5

Avatar of Lyssa: For 1...48 seconds, you have +10 maximum Energy and your attacks deal +5...41 damage to foes activating skills. This skill is disabled for 120 seconds.
Energy cost: 5
Casting time: 2
Recharge: 10

Energy cost was 15, recharge was 5 and the damage has been increased - it used to cap ar 41 at level 16, not at level 12

Avatar of Melandru: For 1...48 seconds, you have +200 Health, you are unaffected by Conditions, and your attacks deal earth damage. This skill is disabled for 120 seconds.
Energy cost: 25
Casting time: 2
Recharge: 10

Energy cost was 15, recharge was 5

Pious Renewal: For 8 seconds, whenever an Enchantment ends on you, you gain 0...2 Energy and 0...20 Health
Energy cost: 5
Casting time: 1/4
Recharge: 3

Wasn't Elite. Health gained has been sligtly changed.

Vow of Silence: For 5...9 seconds, you cannot be the target of Spells, and you cannot cast Spells.
Energy cost: 5
Casting time: 1
Recharge: 10

Has not been changed.

Scythe Mastery

Reaper's Sweep: If this attack hits, you deal +10...34 damage. If your target was below 50% Health, you also inflict a Deep Wound for 5...17 seconds.
Energy cost: 5
Recharge: 8

Has been reworked. Used to be,

Exhausting Strike: If this attack hits, you deal + 1-31 damage and inflicts a Deep Wound for 3-10 seconds but suffer from Weakness for 10 seconds.
Energy cost: 5
Recharge: 10
Wasn't Elite

Wounding Strike: If this attack hits while you are under the effects of an Enchantment, target foe suffers from a Deep Wound for 5...17 seconds. If you do not have an Enchantment on you, this attack causes Bleeding for 5...17 seconds.
Energy cost: 5
Recharge: 3

Wasn't Elite. Energy cost was 10, and the duration of the Deep Wound was fixed at 10 seconds

Wind Prayers

Grenth's Grasp: For 20 seconds, if you are wielding a cold weapon, your attack Skills also Cripple that foe for 3...13 seconds.
Energy cost: 10
Casting time: 1/4
Recharge: 20

New

Onslaught: For 5...17 seconds, your attack Skills recharge 25% faster and cost 25% less Energy.
Energy cost: 10
Casting time: 1
Recharge: 20

New

Vow of Essence: For 10 seconds, you have -4 energy regeneration, and you gain 1...4 Energy every time you hit with an attack.
Energy cost: 5
Casting time: 1
Recharge: 10

New

[lavenbb]

I wouldn't say bad, but un-innovative.

Most of them, beside the avatar forms, are basically the same as normal skills but with maybe less restrictions.

[Heelz]

Reaper's Sweep: If this attack hits, you deal +10...34 damage. If your target was below 50% Health, you also inflict a Deep Wound for 5...17 seconds.
Energy cost: 5
Recharge: 8

Has been reworked. Used to be,

Exhausting Strike: If this attack hits, you deal + 1-31 damage and inflicts a Deep Wound for 3-10 seconds but suffer from Weakness for 10 seconds.
Energy cost: 5
Recharge: 10
Wasn't Elite


I think the non-elite Wearying Strike is just a renamed Exhausting Strike. Probably so people don't think it causes exhaustion, like Exhausting Assault. That makes Reaper's Sweep a new skill not available during the PvP event.

[NeferJackal]

Well, I could still like to see oppinions on the individual elites, as a great deal of a class' potential lies in them, and to better understand the Dervish.

And in regards to the Form skills, isnt the recharge kind of irrelevant, since they have a large period of time where they are disabled?

[hexal]

They only get disabled if you cast them succesfully. If they are interrupted they recharge in 10sec.

[Walks With Angels]

I hope that the scythe Elites get somewhat reworked before release : they just seem a bit "meh" with the amount of Deep Wound attacks in Nightfall - after all there are only so many unstackable wounds you want to inflcit.

Personally, the damage bonus of Reaper's Sweep is the only discernable Elite aspect I see at the moment.

I am assuming that the Elite attacks only Deep Wound / Bleed your target, and not others struck by the attack too ?

[Erasculio]

I am assuming that the Elite attacks only Deep Wound / Bleed your target, and not others struck by the attack too ?
I actually think it works on everyone.

I still don't have a strong opinion about most of the Elites since there are too many things I still don't know - one of them being on how doable would it be to make a Dervish focusing more on Scythe attacks than anything else. I have the feeling that the slow attack rate of the scythe would make skills such as Vow of Strenght or Sand Grip of little use, unless allied with skills that increase the attack speed. Ironically, I think Dervish secondaries would make better use of those - a Warrior/Dervish with Vow of Strenght, or an Assassin/Dervish with Sand Grip would probably use those skills better than the Dervish himself. Same for Vow of Essence, that sounds to me like a huge Zealous mod - an Assassin could be happy with it, but the Dervish, unless he's able to use the full 3 hits of the scythe, probably won't like it so much.

I'm divided about the Forms. I see some as powerful, such as Avatar of Dwayna (that helps a lot with one of the best counters to Dervishes, hexing), or Avatar of Melandru (that requires the entire energy poll of the Dervish, and will therefore rend him unable to use other skills for a time - despite this, its applications on defense more than offense are very interesting). Some have potential, but again I don't know if they will work - Avatar of Lyssa deals a lot of damage to foes activating skills, but then again, with the slow scythe attacks, how often are we going to strike at the right time? Avatar of Balthazar sounds to me like something good for Arenas, but little more - it's a nice anti running skill, it increases one's ability to survive without help thanks to the higher armor, and few players have armor strong against holy attacks - but I don't think it will be used often anywhere else. And Avatar of Grenth...I think that's the worst one. Not only I'm not sure if a Dervish could use that many attack skills, but also there are other skills that remove enchantments of the foes without requiring a Elite slot, such as Winds of Disenchantment or Intimidating Gaze.

And the scythe attacks...I have absolutely no idea if they work on a single target, or if they share the AoE that the scythe attacks have, so I don't think I can coment on them.

I don't think I'll be able to make a proper judgment until I have actually used the skills, but for now it seems, to me, that a Dervish/Warrior or Dervish/Assassin (or even the other way around in the later case, an Assassin/Dervish) hybrid would use many of those Elites better than a pure Dervish would.

Erasculio

[NeferJackal]

How about these elites?

Arcane Zeal 10e 1c 5r Elite Mysticism Enchantment
For 10 seconds, whenever you cast a Spell, you gain 1 Energy for each Enchantment on you (maximum 1...7 Energy).

Could this be feasible to create a spellcaster around, with using this as energy management? Though to be able to gain a proper offhand and a wand, I would think Elementalist secondary is the best choice. But I think the question should be, how does Arcane Zeal stack up to Elementalist energy management spells?



Onslaught 10e 1c 20r Elite Wind Prayers Enchantment
For 5...17 seconds, your attack Skills recharge 25% faster and cost 25% less Energy.

While Non dervishes can't get the duration to match the recharge, try imagine this beasty in the hands of a rapidly attacking assasin.

[Ivan Drago]

Making Melandru's Avatar 25 energy is BS.

Once you get DP you need a Focus or Energy Scythe to every have a chance to cast it again at all.

[lavenbb]

Yah.. I also think avatar of melandru is currently problematic. One would think they'd at least make it so that you use some energy then maybe lose some upon successful casting of the spell.

I'm not a fan of avatar forms though, the down time on them significantly hampers a dervish's effectiveness in the battle field, especially after the increased energy cost on most of them.. I don't think they're worth it..

As for the other elites, I don't think they're where the dervish's potentials are. Those elites are put in there to help you manage your skill bar more easily. We already know that dervishes cannot spike nor shutdown, so they have to rely on pressure damage to kill people. Deep wound, bleed, cripple, etc are pretty much a must if you are going to use your scythe. However, if you go mysticism + wind prayer + scythe mastery, you'll find that there're limited ways for you to cause bleeding or deep wound. Wounding strike comes in handy then, as it filled in the blanks. On the other hand, if you have aura of thorns from earth prayers on your bar, you would take reaper's sweep since bleeding is already covered, you take reapers for the added damage.

This is different from say necros, who usually take an elite then form a build around it, dervishes first form the build, then take the elite to compliment.

[meatloafman]

i believe you can expect to see MANY A/D's in the coming days. with a combination of the aoe scythe attacks and critical strikes and considering they have the same armor and energy regen, i believe many scythe builds will be done best by assassins.