Vow of Strength?

[GodHead]

What exactly is the point of Vow of Strength? It disables your attack skills for 10 seconds, and during that time your attacks deal a whopping 21% more damage (assuming you have 16 earth prayers...)? And this is an elite skill? Assuming you hit for maximum damage with every attack, that would be like 8 more damage per attack...

WTF?

What could the point of this skill be, and who would be dumb enough to use it in its current form?

[critical vengeance]

that true; hmm not really sure on that one. Seems pretty bad to me too.

[nkuvu]

How many attack skills do you have on your skill bar? And how many of them can you use in ten seconds? How much extra damage is that in comparison to the bonus to normal attacks?

I don't have all Dervish skills unlocked, of course (and have, in fact, been playing as Paragon for much of the preview). But I didn't have more than one or two attack skills on my skill bar. Had a number of spells and enchantments, though, and those aren't affected by this skill.

But just a random guess looking at the attack skills I know of (and not knowing the actual attack speed of a scythe) it seems comparable to the amount of damage. Most of the attack skills that I know of add no more than 17 to the damage. And with skill recharge, I doubt you could get more than one chance per skill within that ten seconds.

So if you have four attack skills, in ten seconds you could probably do about 68 extra damage. Spending, at minimum, 20 energy. With Vow of Strength (and guessing that you can get at least 5 attacks in ten seconds, and using the +8 damage noted above) you spend five energy, and add 40 points of damage.

Does it look like the Bestest Elite Evar? Nah. But from my wild guesses it doesn't look completely useless, either. Of course I may revise my take on it once we seel the final version, and some people do some tests to see how effective it really is.

[GodHead]

Actually I've been using Chilling Victory (+21 and +53 to all adjacent foes), Eremites Attack, (+10 per adjacent enemy, max +42), Mystic Sweep (+10 for each enchantment on you, max +40), and Pious Assault (+33, if it removes an Enchantment it recharges instantly).

So using the skills in the proper order, I can assure no less than +33 damage per attack, and use them for every attack for longer than 10 seconds. Of course it uses far more energy this way, but it's like 3 times more damage than you would get using the ELITE Vow of Strength.

[Archegonia Mnium]

How about an IAS stance and a spell from the elementalist's Conjure line? Don't think about skills by themselves... that's just not how you play GW.

[GodHead]

How about an IAS stance with my attack skills?

And 21% extra damage on 12 from an Enchant is 2 extra damage. WOW! And I don't even know if it effects the damage from an Enchant. Additionally VoS is an Earth Prayer, so you'd need to have that maxed, and Fire/Water/Air AND a weapon attribute just to use that little "combo"...

Hell even with Order of Pain, Strength of Honor, Fire Enchant and Judges Insight, it's still better just to use attack skills. Vow of Strength's only advantage is that it costs less energy.

The skill is crap. It should not be elite if it disables your attack skills.

Make me a build, or even a team build where the Dervish needs his energy so much that he's better off with VoS than Balth's Avatar or even just using Scythe skills.

[Patccmoi]

I'd tend to agree it's really bad too.

The amount of damage is small, very small. And you can't say it's +8 damage per hit... because it's +8 damage on 60AL. Hit a warrior, and IF YOU CRIT you'll get around +6-7 damage (if you use elemental weapon...). Rest of the time you'll get what, +3, +4? The +damage from attack skills ignores armor, while the base damage doesn't. This changes a LOT.

Scythes has the best base damage of any weapon in the game on crits, and even with them i don't see the point of this skill, so i can't really imagine using it with other weapons either. MAYBE a Hammer warrior... but then again, it's elite, and elite hammer skills are all far far better than that.

This seems like the strength a non-elite skill should have. To be elite, it should either add much more damage than that, or add another benefit (for example +5..17% damage and +5..17% crit). The skill idea isn't necessarily bad, but the stats on it are horrible. You would likely do more damage by using the Scythe elite as it recharges (the good one... not the 'used to be a normal skill and it was ok at best then' elite) on top of adding deep wound on targets below 50%. This elite is 5E every 8 sec for +42 damage with 16 Scythe (something you're likely to max... you're very unlikely to max earth), and can potentially deep wound. How can Vow of Strength actually compare to that?

I mean yes, you can use IAS and Conjures... but you can use them and use attack skills too. Even just the elite attack skill alone will make you deal more damage with a potentially DEVASTATING hit (crit on this on someone below 50%, and it's 122 damage on 60AL + Deep Wound, that's like 222 damage swing).

[Archegonia Mnium]

I agree that some skills really are useless, but I'm not convinced this is necessarily one.

[cardonalj]

Actually I've been using Chilling Victory (+21 and +53 to all adjacent foes), Eremites Attack, (+10 per adjacent enemy, max +42), Mystic Sweep (+10 for each enchantment on you, max +40), and Pious Assault (+33, if it removes an Enchantment it recharges instantly).

So using the skills in the proper order, I can assure no less than +33 damage per attack, and use them for every attack for longer than 10 seconds. Of course it uses far more energy this way, but it's like 3 times more damage than you would get using the ELITE Vow of Strength.

Mystic Sweep or Crippling Sweep

[lavenbb]

Mystic Sweep or Crippling Sweep

mystic sweep deals extra damage based on the number of enchants you have, crippling sweep has the same condition, but cripples your target based on the number of enchants you have.