Build talk:A/D Vow of Strength

Way of the Master doesn't really seem all that useful here. Scythe crits are still decent, but the vast majority of your damage should be coming from VoS and Sand Shards. You'd probably be better off slotting some condition fuel for Reap Impurities or something. Still, I'd probably stick with daggerspam, as 2 Splinters (and/or MoP) provides pretty similar AoE, but with far better single-target damage. -- Jai .  -  23:47, March 10 2012 (UTC)
 * I've only run this a few times, but outside of FoWSC you really take way too long to boot enchantments up before battle {plus its expensive}. I used it to good effect in What waits in shadow where the groups ball up pretty easily. The spikes are good, but without WoTM your energy will die due to lack of crits. Chieftain Alex  00:06, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The energy requirements when you are first getting up all the enchantsis are met by the Runes of Attunement, but yes without WotM you won't have enough energy from crits. What makes this build stand out to me is the high AoE spike potential and the ability to sustain energy and decent AoE damage throughout long battles in HM. Cwestwjg 00:18, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, when you say that it takes too long to boot up enchants that confuses me a bit, the only skills that have a casting time are WotM and VoS which total up to a half second, so what do you mean it takes way too long to boot enchantments up? Cwestwjg 00:22, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Aftercast means 2 seconds, but yeah, that's still not a huge amount of time. -- Jai .  -  00:25, March 11 2012 (UTC)
 * I find critical agility annoying. Good skill, pain in the ass to activate every time (I'm talking hard mode difficult area mobs where you aren't reaggroing every 12 seconds). Chieftain Alex  01:42, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Critical Agility is good. anyway...5 physical classes, 3 worthwhile weapons. we're just going through all the combos recently eh :D (Malicious Strike is good with scythe too.) &#9823;Fianchetto 02:26, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Mistake Fixed
I made the mistake of setting the profession as Dervish/Assassin in the skill template. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused Cwestwjg 00:51, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You need to add attributes as well. -- Jai .  -  00:53, March 11 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed, sorry! Cwestwjg 00:58, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know why you changed the attributes I just fixed, but your spread isn't correct-- Relyk 01:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * How is the spread incorrect? You made me notice that the attributes weren't spread out as well as they could so I adjusted them but going down to 8 earth prayers when your 2 biggest damage dealing skills are earth prayer skills doesn't make any sense. 10+1+1 Critical, 11 Earth Prayers, 9 Scythe Mastery works out perfectly. Cwestwjg 01:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Spread is 11-10-10, are you missing an attribute quest? And the breakpoint for crit strikes is 13-- Relyk 01:38, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Had to take my sins armor off to notice the problem, just got confused. When you edited that 8 earth prayers though it just screamed wrong at me and that's why I immediately changed it.

Splinter Weapon and Other Melee Buffs
An auto-attacking scythe triggers more splinter weapon than a dagger spammer chain. This build does an order of magnitude more damage with MoP than a dagger spam chain, even when just auto-attacking. The only time a dagger spammer does superior damage to this build is when there is only one target in range. What makes this build suck compared to a dagger spammer is the lack of SY! (which should be main bar in the dagger spam build.) Tasty 18:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure I get 3 hits in under a third of a second on dagger spammer with EA, can't argue any advantage with splinter tbh. Chieftain Alex  18:10, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The 3 skill dagger chain takes about the same amount of time as 2 scythe auto attacks. Those will both trigger splinter 6 times if the daggers always double strike and the scythe always hits 3 targets, but the daggers are not going to always double strike. If the scythe is not hitting 3 targets, then the splinter doesn't have much of anything to hit anyway. Tasty 18:22, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Meh, tested it again and they both get off about 6 splinters every 2 seconds. Tasty 20:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, how you're getting that scythes trigger MoP more than daggers is beyond me. The biggest complaint about this build, though, is that its single-target damage is all but worthless. -- Jai .  -  03:24, April 13 2012 (UTC)
 * I really hope you're aware that twin moon sweep + VoS triggers MoP 4x jai.. Chieftain Alex  13:08, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't that be 8x? There are two scythe hits and 3 packets of VoS from each swing hitting that foe since things are balled for MoP. If there's no other adjacent foes it doesn't matter how many MoP triggers you get. -- Toraen   confer  03:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I think I was having moment of retardation there, as I believe I had forgotten that this was a VoS bar. Anyway, TMS isn't mainbarred so that's a tiny excuse. -- Jai .  -  04:35, April 18 2012 (UTC)

hey, don't forget Crit Strikes as another melee buff! with VoS, TMS is better than Eremite's for most group sizes (and usually faster recharge too). it should be illegal to run this without MoP support &#9823;Fianchetto 20:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Usage Changed
Revote you foolish simians. 03:21, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thinking about mainbarring IAU. [[Image:They.jpg|36px|link=User:They]] 20:20, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * if this "spike" leaves stuff alive long enough for "IAU!" to be useful, you should probably use Eremite's -> TMS. &#9823;Fianchetto [[Image:Mending.jpg|19px|link=User_talk:Fianchetto]] 00:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You're offering supporting damage to your heroes. You drop the enemy mob's hp enough that heroes can literally instawipe them the second they get there. TMS would be fine which is why it's in optionals, but you don't remove eremites from mainbar on a VoS spike. [[Image:They.jpg|36px|link=User:They]] 00:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Votes
That keep mentioning dervish damage need to be revised. We don't compare classes, if anything this should be compared to a dagger spammer under optimal conditions. E.G. Spiking 15 foes at once with VoS vs. Dagger Spammer. 04:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Much less universal than Dagger Spammer because you can't bring SY!--Saxazaxx (talk) 13:41, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Archive
Inferior damage compared to dagger spammer...?--Saxazaxx (talk) 13:40, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Merge
I propose a merge under the archetype "Critical Scythe". Both builds rely on critical strikes, to fuel the usage of powerful dervish skills. The Vow of Strength variant focusses more on AoE, and Wounding Strike is more single target focussed. Thanks to the properties of scythe (High base damage + aoe), choosing 1 aspect (aoe vs single target) doesn't heavily cripple you in the other. With a merge and some changes, I think we can create a very nice page for people that are fed up with playing Dagger spam all the time. ZStepmother (talk) 12:15, 31 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Spike vs AoE. Different builds imo. Also I've trash voted one of these builds previously as I didn't think it was worth keeping. (this one) - Chieftain Alex (talk) 15:18, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The builds play exactly the same tho. You want to position yourself so that you hit the most enemies. The VoS bar is more spiky aoe, the Wounding Strike is more sustained AoE. Both provide decent sustained single target damage aswel. Both builds also share a lot of skills, and any optionals could be added to both builds too. I think it would be much cleaner to have (and maintain) 1 page of this archetype, rather than 2 (or more, since Shadow Theft could also be an optional elite) different pages. I think the crit Scythe builds are the 2nd best assassin builds, and they are a viable alternative for people that don't like dagger spam. ZStepmother (talk) 17:51, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I disagree with merging. Lots of PvE builds will in effect play the same (because PvE is not very demanding) but the functions of the builds are different. Even then, there are minor practical differences in playstyle between these two: VoS rewards balling as much as feasible, WS gets marginal benefit past 3 (well, 5 if Splinter Weapon instead of GDW). Sharing 3 supporting enchantments does not make these the same build and I don't see how merging the pages is an improvement for people looking for either build. We don't need archtype pages where all of a profession's builds with one weapon inhabit a single page. I think that would do a poor job representing the actual build variety available and doesn't allow for someone to rate them independently (not everyone is going to say both are deserving of the same scores). -Toraen (talk) 16:00, 5 June 2020 (UTC)