User:Gelbrekt/Dervish Builds

Dervish Skills - General Overview

• NOTE: Dervish skills are good to list on a single page since it is relevant to have a list of (for example) Feeder and teardown combos .

Feeder enchantments

Feeder enchantments with the shortest recharge (less than 10s)

• Dust Cloak
• Staggering Force
• Rending Aura
• Vital Boon
• The only remaining enchantment with a shorter recharge than 10s is Pious Renewal (8 seconds), but it is elite.

(Likely) best Feeder Enchantments with 10s recharge time

• Zealous Renewal - Energy management.
• Heart of Holy Flame - Good skill that is extra effective when using forms (e.g avatar of Dwayna) since the build will be heavily invested in mysticism.
• Grenth's Fingers - Effective due to being cheap and having relatively short cooldown.
• Mirage Cloak (Awesome skill. If the build lacks a block-skill, hammer warriors will render it useless [can't get up from the ground]!)
  • WARNING: Heroes might use Mirage Cloak ineffectively (see the comments i added on the Mirage Cloak page).
  • Relevant DATA from toolbox on skill usage (see the picture's summary for more details):
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Most interesting Enchantments that can end themselves (shorter duration than recharge)

• Meditation - EPIC SKILL for energy-management when using multiple skills that can end themselves. Also, if only using skills that end themselves, this can be used on heroes (otherwise they teardown meditation, and ruins their energy management).
• Whirling Charge - Does technically NOT require a large WInd Prayers investment.
• Shield of Force - Does NOT require a large Earth Prayers investment.
• Attacker's Insight
• Eremite's Zeal - Great since it is also an energy management skill.
• Conviction
• Lyssa's Haste - Warning: When using this skill, the other skills might be possible to reapply on their own, which isnt great.
• Harrier's Haste
• Guiding Hands - Removed after X amount of attacks.
• Earth Prayer skills that are good, but QUESTIONABLE since they require Earth Prayers investment, and wind prayers is generaly better for triggering derv enchantments):
  • Sand Shards - Great skill.
  • Mirage Cloak - Great skill.
• Armor of Sanctity - Attacker's Insight is normally better since it gives blocking and can also inflict weakness. HOWEVER; this skill can be good if using Mirage cloak, since that skill already covers the blocking, and Armor of Sanctity affects all damage, not just attacks.

• Faithful Intervention - Questionable since it has a 2s activation time andd 20s recharge time.
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Less interesting Enchantments that can end themselves (shorter duration than recharge)

• Eremite's Zeal - Energy management. Good skill, but meditation is likely superior.

Teardowns

• Contemplation of Purity - an extremely effective teardown which in most cases likely is the most effective one (being able to tear down all enchantments every 10 seconds, far surpassing Pious Assault which is otherwise quite effecitve. It is worth noting that the AI cannot use this effectively though.
• Pious Assault - Good constant teardown.
• Pious Fury - Good because it is constant, and easy to use by the ai.
• Eremite's Attack - Useful because it synergizes with adrenaline teardowns since it can hit multiple targets.
• Twin Moon Sweep - Adrenaline teardown.
• Wearying Strike - Adrenaline teardown

List of ALL Dervish Enchantments that are NOT Flash Enchantments

• ADVANTAGE: These skills can be used if you want to maximize the amount of enchantments you activate. The current use-case i see of this is if you are affected by Tranquility (causing enchantments to expire faster) and Quickening Zephyr, and want to just spam as many enchantments as possible to Trigger Avatar of Dwayna as many times as possible. In this case, Flash Enchantments are restricted by the 1s disable time, but skills from this list are not:

• Arcane Zeal -
• Armor of Sanctity -
• Aura of Holy Might -
• Eremite's Zeal -
• Eternal Aura -
• Faithful Intervention -
• Featherfoot Grace -
• Guiding Hands -
• Intimidating Aura -
• MEDITATION WAS MISSING - Maybe others too??
• Mystic Regeneration -
• Mystic Vigor -
• Vow of Piety -
• Vital Boon -
• Watchful Intervention -
• Vow of Revolution -
• Vow of Silence -
• Vow of Strength -

General Powerful Skills

Uncategorized

Enchantments

• Mystic Regeneration - Potentially strong self-heal.
• Veil of Thorns
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Melee attacks

• Chilling Victory - Appears to deal 25 damage for EACH foe it hits, meaning that it should deal 3*25 damage. Also relatively cheap.
• Reap Impurities - Similar to Chilling Victory
  • Aura Slicer - Has at least two uses:
  • Perfect for Reap Impurities
  • Has the lowest adrenaline cost of dervish attack skills, and is linked to mysticism, making it suitable for Avatar of Dwayna builds (since it removes hexes)
• Radiant Scythe - Great for energy management if hitting multiple foes.
• Zealous Sweep - Decent energy management skill, which has some synergy with Radiant Scythe since it gives potentially multiple stacks of adrenaline.
• Skills for triggering Avatar of Dwayna's hex removal:
  • Banishing Strike - Excellent since it has the shortest recharge time if any derv melee attack.
  • Victorious Sweep - Good because it only has 4 seconds recharge time.

General powerful skills

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Less interesting skills

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Builds

Empty Bar

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Optionals

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"Heroic Refrain"-enchanted dervish spamming Chilling/Crippling Victory & Reap Impurities

• The purpose of this build is to to compare it to the 7 Weapon Stance warrior build i made on the warrior page: User:Gelbrekt/Warrior_Builds#Scythe_Mastery

Build summary

• Spam the 3 mentioned adrenaline skills for very high area damage, since scythe mastery is at 20.

Comparison to the warrior build

• Issues with the warrior build:
  • A dervish with 16 scythe mastery would still arrive at 20 scythe mastery with Heroic refrain, and then have a bunch of attribute points left.
  • In addition, the attack speed from 7WS can easily be substituted with a Pumpkin Cake which are very cheap nowdays

• Advantages that this gives to the dervish:
  • This freed up an elite slot, a pve slot, and a stance slot, while ALSO removing the vulnerability of having the stance removed, which can be really damaging for the warrior.
    • VoS is clearly a good contender for elite since it has epic synergy with Whirlwind attack AND is affected by Ebon Ward. This is FAR BETTER than the minor armor penetration from strength.
    • Since a PvE slot is freed, the build can still use both Ebon Ward and Save Yourselves in addition to the Whirlwind attack.

• • Much higher base energy regeneration (4 instead of 2)
  • Able to invest in mysticis, which in turn is INCREASED by Heroic refrain, e.g the final result could be for instance:
    • 12+4+4 Scythe mastery - Note that this does NOT require a superior rune, since Golden Eggs and Candy Corn is cheap!
    • 9+1+4 Mysticism
    • 9+1+4 Earth Prayers

• Advantages of the warrior build:
  • The warrior built isn't dependent on a paragon (although the paragon could boost many allies; it does not just boost the derv).
  • The warrior has much higher (+30) base armor, assuming he uses Sentinel Insignias.
  • the strength attribute does add some armor penetration, which is decent considering the unusually high based damage.

EXAMPLE BUILD

• Note that this is just an example; This build can likely be improved: A MAIN AREA of improvement is that the Elite skill is entirely open to change. However VoS with 17 Earth in addition to the scythe skills isn't bad at all.
• Total stats: 20 Scythe, 7 Mysticism, 17 [12+1+4] Earth Prayers (note that while 7 mysticism is possible, it isn't necessary since the energy management there isnt needed.

	Elite

	Elite

Other elites to use

• I have been skimming through all elites (on the "list of all elites" page) and I actually suspect VoS is one of the best choices, even though this was just my first assumption and i spent very little time on it. However some other suggestions migiht be good:

Top prio

• Vow of Strength - Extremely good since it adds epic unconditional area damage, especially with Whirlwind Attack.
• Panic - While this might seem like a very strange choice at first, I believe it might be pretty good because: (1) It removes the need for a panic mesmer [which is otherwise a no-brainer in any team] (2) The build already inflicts massive AoE damage; most likely more than a domination magic mesmer would.
  • Wastrel's Worry or Wastrel's Demise can be used effectively here too; Especially Wastrel's Worry which lasts only 1 second on bosses, allowing the build to deal hign single target damage to (since it can be spammed on the same target).
• Grenth's Grasp - Nice because of its condition transfer. However, conditions are easy to remove with Mend Body and Soul, and it only transfers it to a single target. Also the damage bonus from Conjure Frost is inferior to the other damage skills.
• Avatar of Dwayna - Convenient since this provides very powerful hex removal, since the build is designed to use attack skills with basically every attack.

Other skills

• Ebon Dust Aura - Initially seems cool due to increased attack damage. However, this is clearly INFERIORto VoS, since it only increases it on a single target.
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Avatar of Dwayna Minion Healer - EPIC BUILD: Meditation can be used instead of Radiant Scythe

• For this build: is very suitable since it has a very low attribute req, allowing the dervish to do about half of normal attack damage (instead of none).

	Elite

Calculation - How often does it trigger Avatar of Dwayna?

• Without taking Lyssa's Haste into account:
  • 1 skill with 6 seconds recharge time -> 0.167 times per second.
  • 3 skills with 10 seconds recharge time -> 0.3 times per second.
  • 1 skill with 15 seconds. -> 0.067 times per second
  • 1 skill with 20 seconds. -> 0.05 times per second.
  • Total = 0.167+0.3+0.067+0.05 = 0.584 (This is the theoretical max value. Actual value can be expected to be a bit lower since the AI can't spam skills as frequently).
  • CONCLUSION: Should trigger avatar of Dwayna about once every 2 seconds during combat. This amounts to about 25 health per second AoE healing, which in theory is enough to keep minions alive even with 10 pips of health degen!!

• NOTE: The actual value could actually be HIGHER than this since Lyssa's Haste reduces the recharge time. Assuming it is reduced to the full potential, it should be the following (Note that Meditation and Lyssa's Haste cannot be reduced this way):
  • 1 skill with 4 seconds recharge time -> 0.25 times per second.
  • 3 skills with 7 seconds recharge time -> 0.429 times per second.
  • 1 skill with 15 seconds. -> 0.067 times per second
  • 1 skill with 20 seconds. -> 0.05 times per second.
  • Total: 0.25+0.429+0.067+0.05 = 0.796

• Total healing (based on calculations above)
  • Lower estimate (maximizing the use of the skill useage, but without Lyssa's Haste): 0.584*47 = 27.4 Health per second.
  • Maximum (Maximizing with lyssas haste): 0.796*47 = 37.4 Health per second.

Comparison with previous builds

• This buils is CLEARLY better than the previous builds, since:
  • Meditation is WAY BETTER than Radiant Scythe since (1) it gives WAY more energy, and can just as easily be used by the AI (2) It serves as an additional enchantment, which triggers avatar of Dwayna.
  • With meditation, Eremite's Zeal is uneccesary since the build gains enough energy. This allows for other skills to be used.
• NOTE: The build CANNOT use a sword/shield, since Sand Shards doesn't work then.

Overall summary of strengths of this build

• Has SIX flash enchantment that end themselves before recast, and enough energy CONSTANTLY spam all of them, triggering Avatar of Dwayna VERY FREQUENTLY. This is very good for healing necromancer minions. See calculations above

• Unlike the other builds which only focuses on triggering AoD, all skills in the build are actually effective on their own.
  • 3 skills dealing area damage (whirling charge, Sand Shards, Mirage Cloak)
  • 1 skill causing AoE interrupt (Lyssa's Haste)
  • 2 skills giving at least 50% block chance (Attacker's Insight & Mirage Cloak)
  • Area weakness (Attacker's Insight)
• Banishing Strike is EXCELLENT for this build because (1) It has the shortest recharge time of any dervish melee attack (and also short activation time) making it GREAT for triggering AoD's Hex removal (removing 1 hex every 4 seconds). This is important for the build since skills such as Backfire / Visions of Regret / Scourge Enchantment will otherwise be devastating. (2) Banishing Strike is a fully effective melee attack even though scythe mastery can't be used.
• Because the build DOES NOT rely on teardowns (which are typically used during combat), the build can heal minions automatically between battles, since the flash enchantments will end after battles on their own.

Variation 1 - Using PvE - skills

• BASIC LOGIC:
  • 1. It is most likely NOT a good idea to equip 3 pve skills, since this significantly reduces the AoE Heals
  • 2. The least important skills that could be substituted are:
    • Banishing Strike
    • Mirage cloak OR Attacker's Insight (at least 1 of them should be used).
    • Sand Shards or Lyssa's Haste could be dropped, but are probably good to KEEP since Lyssa's haste reduces recharge of all enchantments (very good) and Sand Shards both deal high AoE and triggers AoD frequently.

BEST candidates for PvE skills

• Ebon Battle Standard of Honor - A no brainer.
• Aura of Holy Might - Worth TESTING. It looks pretty weak, but it could perhaps work considering that this build loses enchantments very often.
• Whirlwind Attack - Nice because it can trigger AoD:s enchantment removal. ALSO it grants adrenaline to use for teardowns such as Wearying Scythe (though that build isnt discussed here)
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Other candidates

• Cry of Pain - Decent skill to support with some extra damage.

	Elite

Variation 2 - using teardowns and short recharge skills

• IDEA: Since the player can use a Pumpkin pie and get 25% IAS, the adrenaline goes up faster, allowing for more enchantments to be removed.
• This also allows for dropping Earth OR Wind Prayers entirely (Whirling charge can be used without this.

• PROBLEM WITH THESE BUILDS:
  • MAIN ISSUE: If this is supposed to be a player PvE build (AoD doesnt work in PvP, and heroes cant use teardowns with meditation), it would need pvE skills, which there isn't really much space for.
  • I sort of doubt that it increases the overall healing from AoD. Despite the fact that short recharge time skills are used, the teardowns take up 2 spots.

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EARTH PRAYERS

	Elite

WIND PRAYERS

	Elite

Optionals

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USEAGE of the AoD healer - Use together with skills that buff allies

• Main page: Ally (Includes skills that buff allies.
• Also See skills that affect minions: List of minion skills

Most Obvious Damage Buffs

• Order of Undeath = +15 Damage. Maintainable.
• Ebon Battle Standard of Honor = +15 Damage. Maintainable.
  • It DOES deal damage to the caster, but this can be mitigated by
• Ursan Blessing -> Ursan Roar = +15 Damage 5s every 15s. [NOT FANTASTIC, although it is fun to combine with Wbon Battle Standard & ]
• Volfen Blessing -> Volfen Bloodlust = +33% attack speed 7s per 10s, but is MAINTAINABLE when affected by Volfen Agility [is GREAT since it SYNERGIZES with increase damage]
• Weapons of Three Forges -> More random, but gives a whole host of healing and damaging skills.
• Mark of Pain - EPIC for this purpose due to the MASSIVE amount of physical attacks and lack of AoE. HOWEVER it has a long cooldown and only applies to a single target.

• CRACKED ARMOR -> Useful since it increases the minion's base damage.
  • Rending Aura / Staggering Force are great if using a second dervish
  • Weaken Armor

Less obvious damage Buffs

• Heroic Refrain -> Can be used to boost the attributes of the necromancers, allowing for (1) MORE minions due to Higher Hp, armor, higher energy on the necros, and higher minion cap. (2) Stronger minions due to higher levels.
• "Go for the Eyes!" -> Great since it can viritually guarantee critical hits.

Additional AOE Heals (Likely NOT needed due to the high amount of heals from the build)

• Life & Recuperation
• Blood Bond
• Spirit's Gift - Can be useful if using a ritualist minion master.
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Other skills

• Malign Intervention + Verata's Gaze - Potentially useful since they allow for more minions to be created (since Malign Intervention does not consume the corpse
• Dwayna's Sorrow - Doesn't heal the minions, but useful if the party has tons of them.
• Barbs - NOT great since single target damage will already be very high by default, and this only applies to a single target.
• Dulled Weapon - The wiki adds that minions are lower level than foes, making them vulnerable to critical hits. This skill removes that vulnerability (however inteptitude might be better).
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Alternative build - Pull Down Earth and Wind Prayers, and get other skills

• LOGIC: With Earth & Wind Prayers close to 0, it opens up for an entirely new attribute to invest in without removing the AoE healing. At the same time, the build still has a large amount of energy to spre due to the enchantments being free due to Meditation

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Suggestions

• Banishing Strike - Note that this skill CAN be skipped if facing an enemy team with few hexes.
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Necromancer.

• Animate Bone Horror -> Great considering that the build gives additional minions to heal without increasing the amount of players.
• Verata's Gaze -> Potentially great if another player uses Malign Intervention since this allows the dervish to get more minions WITHOUT consuming corpses!
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PLAYER build 1 - Verata's (The AI can't use this properly)

• 10 Death Magic
• 12+2 Mysticism.
• Most of the rest goes into Wind Prayers & Earth Prayers. Dump final points into Scythe Mastery.

	Elite

• This should in theory be a GREAT improvement for the build, for several Reasons.
  • The necromancers using Malign Intervention have high death magic (boosted with Masochism!), meaning that the minions converted by Verata's Gaze will be at least level 18 despite relatively low death magic.
  • At the same time, Malign Intervention + Verata's Gaze does not consume corpses, allowing for additional minions that synergize with the build.
  • The Recuction in Wind Prayers and earth Prayers to allow 10 Death Magic [Allowing 7 extra minions] can seem high at first, but the changes to these skills are relatively LOW (comparing attribute 10 in both, to 6 Wind and 7 Earth):
  • Lyssa's Haste Duration: 11 -> 8
  • Wirling Charge Damage: 43 -> 30
  • Mirage Cloak: 67% block for 5 seconds -> 59% for 4 seconds
  • Attacker's Insight Duration: 8 -> 6
  • KEEP IN MIND that the main benefit of the build is not from these skills, but the healing from AoD.

Disadvantages.

• The AI might not be great at using Verata's Gaze.

Nec builds

• Without a derv with Verata's, the necro would use:

	Elite

• WITH this build, the the following would be replaced:
  • Animate Bone Minions -> Animate Bone Horror
  • Death Nova OR Signet of Lost Souls -> Malign Intervention

• (The other necro would use:)

	Elite

Theory - Use CoP + Meditation

Build Idea

• Contemplation of Purity is effective in that it is an extremely effective teardown (being able to tear down all enchantments every second, far surpassing Pious Assault which is otherwise quite effecitve.
  • Meditation then allows for very strong energy management, potentially allowing very frequent triggering of for example Avatar of Dwayna.
  • GEAR Get gear that grants a high amount of max energy, which allows the energy spike from Meditation to fill up the bar (since meditation has twice the recharge of CoP).
    • Additionally, consumables such as Birthday Cupcakes and Candy apples are very effective here.

• Note: I am somewhat sceptical of this idea considering that there are only 4 non-elite skills with a recharge time of less than 10 seconds. At the same time, CoP has a recharge time of 10 seconds, so it can't remove enchantments more frequently than that. As a result, relying on "enchantments that can end themselves" is likely going to be able to trigger AoD faster. HOWEVER, it is possible that the build could still become overall more POWERFUL with this combo despite the fact that the triggering is less.

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Supporting builds

Related Ritualist build - Rit Supporter

• Intention: The build is used together with the AoD derv healer + (for example) 2 minion masters for HM farming. With the 2 discord minion masters, they can easily get up and maintain an army of Shambling Horrors and Bone Fiends (No other minions are needed since the Shambling horrors survive due to constant heal from the derv).

• Empty Bar

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Optionals - Top Skills

• Verata's Gaze - Normally a terrible skill, but actually quite good here since (1) The build can afford investing in some death magic (2) The necromancers with high death magic can use Malign Intervention, causing this skill to convert a relatively high leveled minion, (3) This method of gaining minions doesn't consume corpses, and amplifies the build since it is already organized around boosting minions with attack damage and healing.
• Death Nova - NORMALLY heroes are better suited for this, however in this case I think players might be better since the party has lots of bone fiends, who typically don't stand near enemies.
• Weaken Armor - Great since it increases minion damage and allows for Discord

Channeling Magic (More powerful, but requires investment)

• Spirit Siphon - Good energy management, Remember that it also works nicely with the sports summoned by the necros. Can potentially replace Boon of Creation.
• Destruction - Perfect combo with Rupture Soul.
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• Rupture Soul - Blindness is strong, triggers discord, and RS deals high damage due to high spawn power.

PvE

• Pain Inverter - Very powerful vs Bosses (and also certain key targets) due to the minion army.
• Technobabble - Useful since the team already has resistance to martial professions (Shadow of Fear & Attacker's Insight), and this provides shutdown on casters.
• Necrosis - Great single target damage, however I suspect that Naga shaman is better, since it deals 100 damage w stoning + KD, as well as benefitting from the Ebon Ward and WotF.
• Summon Naga Shaman - Generally useful skill, also nice since party has weakness.

Lower Prio

• Animate Bone Minions + Boon of Creation - Good combo, however the two necros already consume most corpses, making this LESS viable.
• Animate Shambling Horror - Likely NOT worth it since the build already has a bunch of horrors
• Rising Bile - Decent AoE, also helps Discord Necros
• Putrid Bile - Decent AoE, also helps Discord Necros
• Signet of Creation - Only good if skipping Channeling Magic

Low Channeling Magic Version

	Elite

• Somewhat sceptical of this one; it seems difficult to integrate high death magic into this.

Some Channeling Focus

• 14
• 10 Death magic
• 8+1 Channeling Magic
• Minimal Curses is needed since targets with Weaken armor can be expected to die fast.

	Elite

Summary

Promising build: Has several strengths:

• Can control 7 (or 8 with cons) extra minions, without requiring corpses, and using 16 Death magic (created by the necros). This can result in 4-man teams with almost 30 minions, who are kept alive by the dervish.
• Boosts the minions:
  • Weapons of Three Forges can boost everything: Damage, Healing, Protection and Utility (e.g interrupt & inflicting blindness)
    • Note: Considering that Weapon of 3 Forges can inflict cracked armor, "Weaken Armor" could be dropped for Bloodsong, since this has great synergy with Spirit Siphon + Rupture Soul.
  • Ebon Battle Standard, and Weaken Armor increases damage.
• Can inflict area damage and blindness with Destruction + Rupture Soul

Channeling Magic Version

• Spontaneous testing suggested that the necros use ALOT of corpses and there aren't many corpses left even when having just 2 necros, so this opens up for using channeling instead of death magic.

	Elite

• Somewhat surprisingly, i strongly expect that for this build, Empowerment is actually better than Lamentation because with it, you can use Spirit Siphon followed by Rupture soul, dealing more damage overall and causing additional blindness. Of course, there is a good chance the targets will already be blinded from the other spirits, but this enables you to blind more targets.
  • Energy cost lamentation: 10
  • Energy cost Empowerment + SS + RS: Total energy cost: 20. Energy gain from Spirit Siphon at 14 Channeling magic: 14. Total energy cost: 6.

Ursan Blessing Version

• Ursan Blessing - Likely NOT a good idea because Ebon Battle Standard is superior, and the elites are already occupied by AoD & WotF. The reason why it could be interesting is because it would give a total of 30+ damage for the minions.
  • ADVANTAGES: (1) Provides +15 damage to all minions (5s every 15 sec), (2) Allows skipping Spawning power, opening up for other skills.
  • DISADVANTAGES: (1) Cannot be minion master (2) Cannot use Weapon of 3 Forges, which I would guess is ultimately better.