Curse

ValaOfTheFens · Feb 21, 2010, 05:20 AM // 05:20

I was thinking about how reliant the 4 non-core professions can be on secondary professions at times and realized they need a serious rebalance. Not the typical reaction to the metagame update but a careful examination of each profession. Each of the non-core professions would have their skills examined and buffed, nerfed, or moved to a more suitable attribute to match the technical aspects as well as the flavor of the profession in question. Also, the 4 non-core professions would benefit from more skills. Something like 10 each and maybe another 2 elites for Dervs and Paras. ANet has proven themselves incapable of making balanced Sin and Rit elites but maybe Dervs and Paras have a chance.

Anyway, more skills means more build diversity and that means they have something more to add to the overall game experience.

I know this is unlikely to happen but it seems like it would be a decent idea. ANet wants us to use each profession, right?

jazilla · Feb 21, 2010, 05:33 AM // 05:33

I agree with some of your concerns, but wouldn't Mesmers and Eles also have a right to moan about some of the same issues, sans the lack of skills and elites problem? I agree with the, "more skills" thing you are talking about though, especially as it pertains to Paras and Dervs. It's like with Paras: great in 8v8 but almost entirely unplayable in 4v4. You can do it, but there are dozens of other more viable options for doing it better on another class. They are playable in 4v4, but they don't shine at all, save for a small window of certain skills.

That is the conundrum with games such as these though. ANET released EOTN with the Hall of Monuments connecting players to GW2, and you would be unable to link your GW1 character's ancestor to GW2 without it, thus making it necessary to buy it. The fact that they put the PvE only skills in with it too, almost made it completely necessary for a while to own the expansion for play in PvE as well(for some areas). All these things are shrewd business moves, but it really hurt the game when they didn't add more skills for the Paras and Dervs at the very least in EOTN. Sadly, it won't happen at this point.

ANET also thought they would be releasing GW2 WAY sooner than they are. They announced right when EOTN came out. If they had known it was going to take this long, I believe that support for GW1 would still be ongoing. I also believe firmly that we would have had another expansion. If this "apocalypse" thing happens in GW1 like they said in that article a few weeks ago is still in the works, then maybe we will see a few skills introduced, but I don't hold my breath for anything with this game anymore. It's just not worth it to.

Luminarus · Feb 21, 2010, 06:12 AM // 06:12

If your talking about PvE, Rits, Sins, and Paras are already extremely powerful, dervs unfortunately wont win because Sins and Wars use scythes better.

If your talking about pvp, the classes need to be crap, or they are OP. So either way, bad idea. The classes would need a complete rework to not be OP or crap in pvp, and there are more problems within the game then just that.

angrimbor · Feb 21, 2010, 06:38 AM // 06:38

I disagree with your statement that tanks and sins use scythes better than dervs. I run a Conjure Frost/Avatar of Grenth build that has me hitting around 130 with each hit in HM (20 of which is lifesteal). Non-dervish primaries can't run with a conjure, nor do they have Mysticism, which gives powerful bonuses such as the avatars and IAS enchants. Being able to keep up Heart of Fury indefinitely, in conjunction with Grenth and Conjure, certainly has my dervish doing more damage than any A/D or W/D.

Cuilan · Feb 21, 2010, 07:09 AM // 07:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by ValaOfTheFens

I was thinking about how reliant the 4 non-core professions can be on secondary professions at times and realized they need a serious rebalance.

Might happen to the ritualist since the Test Krewe and Anet have a strong bias towards them. Their main problem is lack of skills which mostly effects paragons and dervish.

reaper with no name · Feb 21, 2010, 07:37 AM // 07:37

Assassins don't need buffs. Even after SF is nerfed, they will remain one of the most powerful professions in PvE, thanks to builds such as MSDB and critscythe.

Neither do rits. They use spirit spam and splinter weapon better than anyone else. The main thing keeping them from being overpowered is that they don't stack very well.

Paragons have only one useful build, but due to the way PvE is set up (with only a few roles that anyone can perform), it would be very hard to give them something else worthwhile without taking it away from some other class. Furthermore, the class has a history of becoming overpowered the moment it is given something it can do well.

Why haven't you included Rangers, Elementalists, and Mesmers? Technically, Elementalists don't need a buff, because they have their overpowered ER healer builds, but those are certainly not what the class was intended to do. Rangers and Mesmers each have only a couple of builds that they can do better than other classes, and most of them have questionable usefulness.

The dervish is the main one you got right. There is no reason to use one of them in PvE. But they don't need to be given a total rework; they just need to be made the best with scythes, like they should have always been.

Quote:

Originally Posted by angrimbor

I disagree with your statement that tanks and sins use scythes better than dervs. I run a Conjure Frost/Avatar of Grenth build that has me hitting around 130 with each hit in HM (20 of which is lifesteal). Non-dervish primaries can't run with a conjure, nor do they have Mysticism, which gives powerful bonuses such as the avatars and IAS enchants. Being able to keep up Heart of Fury indefinitely, in conjunction with Grenth and Conjure, certainly has my dervish doing more damage than any A/D or W/D.

You remind me of myself when I was still a newbie. So believe me when I say I'm trying to help you by telling you all of this. It's for your own good.

See, I thought that build was good too. And then I learned about Aura of Holy Might. Turns out it adds far more damage than that puny conjure could ever hope to. And it did it without forcing me to spec into water magic.

Of course, since AoHM changes your damage type, the conjure becomes meaningless, and should be dropped.

The skill is so effective in fact, that it changes the way you deal damage. Instead of trying to get +dmg, it turns out to be more effective to get in as many hits as you can, because autoattacks with AoHM are as good as your attack skills are now with that conjure (to say nothing of what it could do with attack skills).

So the best way to deal damage, as it turns out, is to equip yourself with a lot of quick-activation, quick recharge skills, because more hits with an AoHM-enchanted scythe will yield far more damage than any other method, since so much of the damage comes from AoHM to begin with.

But that costs a lot of energy. Where to get it? Zealous Vow is your only option.

So, bye bye to the avatar. And now you have a free PvE-only slot for Asuran Scan (or Save Yourselves, if you were using that already). Even though you lose the ability to maintain Heart of Fury, your dps is still much higher. If you ignore SY and take I Am The Strongest instead for more damage, you can get dps of 180. One hundred and eighty. Since I doubt you've done the math (I have, which is how I got that number), I'll just say that your number of 130 is probably off. I'm willing to bet it's not the average dps; probably your dps on a crit or what you're used to seeing on an attack skill most of the time. But the average dps of a zealous vow build is still far better than an AoG build could ever be.

Too bad Warriors get strength and Assassins get critical strikes. And both get a maintainable IAS. Those advantages are far greater than your puny scythe mastery runes.

Oh, and by the way, once you make the jump to Hard Mode, you'll find that the dps of your build will drop significantly (by almost half). When people talk damage on this forum, they are referring to HM, where everything has twice as much armor. So your 130 (if it was in fact your average dps; I sincerely doubt it) would actually be more like 80. But let's pretend you were talking HM. I can tell you right off the bat that there is no way you are getting 130 dps in HM with an AoG/Conjure build. Here's some back of the envelope calculations:

your avg dmg post crit rates will be at most 30 (we'll ignore the negative impact higher-level foes have on your crit rate, since otherwise this would become complicated). HM armor reduces your damage down to 15. With customization and weapon inscription that goes up to 20.

Now, with an AoG/Conjure build, we know you have this:

AoG
EA
HoF
Conjure Frost

We'll assume (to give you the best chance possible) that your other skills are IAtS, Asuran Scan, Mystic Sweep, and Eremite's Attack, and that you are always surrounded by 3 enemies or more, always have 3 enchantments on you at least, that you can spam those two attack skills on recharge (didn't you hear? They give you a lot more dps than Chilling Victory, in spite of it's AoE, because their recharge times aren't 10 sec!). You don't have that kind of energy on an AoG build, of course, but we'll ignore that. This means you get +30 damage every two seconds, which comes out to +15 dps. Now you're at 35.

Now let's say conjure adds +15 (which it won't, because your water magic rank won't be that high, but we'll ignore that too). That's only 50.

IAtS gives you +21 damage (we're assuming full ranks on all PvE skills) on 8 out of 20 attacks. For simplicity's sake, we'll call that +20 damage half the time, which becomes +10 dps. Now you've got 60 dps.

Asuran Scan adds +75% damage to one foe. So 1.75*60 = 105.

Now lifesteal. According to you, that is 20. So, 125 dps.

Now, we have yet to consider your offensive scythe mod. Vampiric scythes add the most dps, so that's +5. Now you're at 130 exactly.

Yay! You did it! Or did you?

Nope, because even with HoF up indefinitely, your attack rate is still one attack per 1.17 sec. So your dps goes down to 111.

Now, keep in mind that I assumed you had infinite energy, max ranks in all the relevant PvE skills, and used the best possible skills (skills which I doubt you were using). And you still couldn't reach 130 dps.

A zealous vow dervish can, though. Probably without even using his third PvE slot for damage.

And a scythe warrior or scythe sin can do even better.

spirit of defeat · Feb 21, 2010, 09:00 AM // 09:00

I'm a fulltime rit and I personally don't need a buff. I have my own special team for HH
an sos build for puging
and a resto build if needed.

all powerfull enough and more then enough variety

We all know that drev's have problems and sins only run 1 build because of the metagame.

Deatgs Corrupter · Feb 21, 2010, 09:45 AM // 09:45

this may be crazy, but I remember when nightfall came out, everyone was like; dervs are going to be farming machines cos they can hit multiple targets. soooo when a derv wieelds a scythe he can hit more than 3 people, in pve, and sycthe mastery also increase armor penetration of sythe only skills.
rt is overpowered, it can make spirits and heal, on occasions, better than a monk.
sin; if you play sin like it was supposed to. I.e shadow step in, take out one or two squishys, recall back/ebon escape.
paragon; impagon 87% damage reduction aint overpoweres at all. paras are supposed to buff teamates, and they do it fine.

Desert Rose · Feb 21, 2010, 12:29 PM // 12:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luminarus

If your talking about PvE, Rits, Sins, and Paras are already extremely powerful, dervs unfortunately wont win because Sins and Wars use scythes better.

If your talking about pvp, the classes need to be crap, or they are OP. So either way, bad idea. The classes would need a complete rework to not be OP or crap in pvp, and there are more problems within the game then just that.

Hit the nail on the head.

Archress Shayleigh · Feb 21, 2010, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by angrimbor

Being able to keep up Heart of Fury indefinitely, in conjunction with Grenth and Conjure, certainly has my dervish doing more damage than any A/D or W/D.

Not a damn way you do more then W/D or A/D. A/D's can easily roll ~200-ish DPS in HM, while W/D's can easily do ~150-ish.

Shayne Hawke · Feb 21, 2010, 02:32 PM // 14:32

You want us to analyze and remake four whole professions?

ha

ajc2123 · Feb 21, 2010, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

You want us to analyze and remake four whole professions?

I can't let you do that starfox!

But yeah, I would rather see a buff to Mesmers and Elementalists (Seriously...the artillery class can't do crap for damage compared to others lol) before Sins rits and paragons. Paragons do need more regular builds other than save yourselves, and dervishes do need a buff of some sort without making them beasts however.

ValaOfTheFens · Feb 22, 2010, 04:32 AM // 04:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shayne Hawke

You want us to analyze and remake four whole professions?

ha

I can dream.

I think some people missed the reason I made this thread. It seems like the non-core professions have been more easily pigeonholed than the core professions. People expect them to fulfill set roles instead of an array of roles within the purview of the Primary profession and supported by the Secondary profession. What will Perma Sins do when SF gets nerfed? Erase their Sins? No but they likely won't play the same role in parties that they did before. I want the non-core professions to be versatile is all. Sorta like how I want people to see Mesmers as more than just Cryway.

Morphy · Feb 22, 2010, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Yes, the non-core professions need to be reworked for the most part. Anet doesn't have the resources for that, so let's fix what we viably can shall we?

AmbientMelody · Feb 22, 2010, 06:56 PM // 18:56

The problem with non-core professions is very simple.

Core game pvp/pve interaction was designed with 6 classes in mind and the scheduled balancing around 350+ or so skills.

Each core class had it's niche. All of core classes filled all niches of the gameplay, especially in pvp. Having that in mind, introducing 'broken' classes which do some things much better than their closest equivalement but have more severe penalties elsewhere is a broken design, because all-rounded class with much wider skill choice will be always better (especially in competitive pvp) than a class with very huge performance extremes and thin choice of skills and viable tactics.

With that said, most probably the only working way to have 4 non-core professions work correctly is giving them competitive quantity and quality of skills compared to the core classes as well as nerfing the base functionality of core classes, ultimately making each of 10 classes have it's own, different niche.

The problem - you can't 'nerf' Mesmer or Necromancer without making them sub-par like the current non-core professions. They are irreplaceable, they are build from scratch to fill in a very specific role. Perhaps Ranger is much more flexible and Monk could be basically a Rt healer with few differences, versatile and highly influential, format-dictating class such as Warrior, with 3 weapon choices would be unable to balance at all, unless the class was removed altogether or could only use one weapon type. Sounds funny, but depending on the weapon of choice Warrior works like a completely different class. A bit funny considering that Dervish or Assassin is like 1/3th of Warrior class, but it's still broken, while each Warrior weapon of choice has more or less a good use in different areas in the game (well, let's say axe is the best choice all-round but still ...).