Curse

Lishy · Aug 20, 2009, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Heart of Holy Flame is anything but the best derv skill.
Its use is so limited that it's just a waste.

What we need to do is take those skills, add some useful effects for melee and e-management, and boom, dervs are fixed. Maybe tweaking wind prayers a bit.

Perhaps move an underused scythe mastery skill to mysticism and add a really neat effect.
Also, a "skill" (Not enchantment or stance) to give bonuses revolving around enchantments.

draxynnic · Aug 21, 2009, 02:48 AM // 02:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

Mot Mysticism skills are the best skills Dervishes have.
But they thing is that they are all quite caster-like, so when a martial weapon user picks the scythe, they will always be better than a caster using it.

Dervishes need something martial-friendlier than a caster bonus.

That's... not really the whole story. It's not just Mysticism that's caster-like, most of the Dervish line is caster-like. They're a caster/martial hybrid.

Thus, it's not necessarily a problem that a Warrior or Assassin is better at using a scythe. However, what is a problem is that Dervish spells aren't really that good (with a few exceptions) and those that are are possibly better fuelled through Warrior's Endurance or Critical Strikes than with the Dervish's own energy-management. So a Mysticism buff doesn't necessary have to be martial in nature - improving its energy-management aspect to match up with Critical Strikes - at least for enchantment-heavy playstyles - and buffing non-scythe forms of damage available to the Dervish may also serve.

reaper with no name · Aug 21, 2009, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Oh noes, it's reaper, come to say the same things we've all heard over and over again!

Warning: Wall Of Text ahead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by draxynnic

That's... not really the whole story. It's not just Mysticism that's caster-like, most of the Dervish line is caster-like. They're a caster/martial hybrid.

Thus, it's not necessarily a problem that a Warrior or Assassin is better at using a scythe. However, what is a problem is that Dervish spells aren't really that good (with a few exceptions) and those that are are possibly better fuelled through Warrior's Endurance or Critical Strikes than with the Dervish's own energy-management. So a Mysticism buff doesn't necessary have to be martial in nature - improving its energy-management aspect to match up with Critical Strikes - at least for enchantment-heavy playstyles - and buffing non-scythe forms of damage available to the Dervish may also serve.

This. It would be ok for dervishes to be inferior scythe users if they had something else to make them worth playing. Problem is, they don't, because not only are they inferior enchantment jugglers, but enchantment juggling sucks in general.

Why should I spam PBAoEs when my scythe is so much more effective? Why should I spam Weakness or Blindness on my foes when I can just take SY! ? It's the same problem that faces the dervish in general; it's just plain suboptimal for a dervish to use anything but the scythe, and even then they're suboptimal.

Buffing mysticism so that dervs have a good reason to be played involves more than buffing mysticism itself; it requires almost a complete rework of the profession's skills so that not only do they have useful effects that can't be duplicated in other ways, but that dervish primaries are more effective at doing so. It would be a long and time-consuming process, fraught with potential for disaster.

That's why most of my suggestions have focused on scythes; it's easy to fix without breaking anything else, and therefore far more likely to be implemented by Anet (or at least, that's my thinking anyway).

That's not to say, of course, that it's wrong to want the dervish to get the same kind of makeover rits got (in fact, it would be a dream come true), but make no mistake; it's a big job, with little room for error. This may be why Anet has been hesitant to deal with it. Rits were easy; they already had a unique mechanic. It just had to be buffed until it was effective. Dervishes really don't. They have a hybrid mechanic that is ultimately another way of doing something that already exists.

One potential starting point is to add mysticism as a sort of secondary requirement to some of the dervish PBAoEs in the same way that Energy Storage is a secondary requirement for certain Elementalist spells (as a way to ensure that eles will use them most effectively).

Also, as for how to change mysticism itself, well, what mysticism should have done from the beginning was decrease the cost of enchantments. Something like 5% per rank or something. Currently, at 15 mysticism, you can break even on a 5 energy enchantment but only get half your energy back for a 10 energy enchantment, and 1/3 of it back for a 15 energy one. It should be a flat %, so that dervishes aren't penalized for using the more effective enchantments. Of course, the more mathematically astute would notice that 5% per rank translates to 60% at 12, which would be a (good) buff. Of course, another good thing is that it would help your energy when you needed it (at the start) rather than at the end (when you don't need it as much).

A potential add-on to the above would be to increase the costs of dervish enchantments to the point that only primary dervishes can afford to spam them (if this were done, however, the effect of mysticism would have to be greater still in order to compensate).

And, of course, a Pious Assault revert would be nice, as well as a reduction in recharge for the enchantments that we want to spam (hmmm...there's an idea; maybe mysticism should affect recharge times for skills? Or even just the recharge time of enchantments).

A rework of the skills in mysticism would be another nice boon.

So, ultimately, if we want dervishes spamming enchantments, and we want it to be a viable playstyle, then we need to answer these questions:

1) What are these enchantments going to do?

If it's damage, how do we make them more powerful than current melee AoEs without making them overpowered?

Keep in mind, if it is pure damage, its gonna need to be more powerful than MSDB to be worthwhile, or else the problem isn't solved (since again, you might as well just go with the sin), and MSDB is arguably overpowered already.

And if it's utility in the form of conditions, then you've still got problems because if the utility is offensive (Poison, Bleeding), then that's really just damage, and you run into MSDB again. If it's defensive utility (weakness, blindness), then you run into the question of "why not just bring SY! ?".

So it would probably have to be something unusual (Cracked Armor, perhaps?) to justify being brought along. Unless it was some whole other type of utility role (maybe we need to be looking at the sort of things monks do, and taking notes on that for the dervish).

2) How will we ensure that primary dervishes will use them better than other professions?

Will we make it so that, through clever attribute and cost finangling, only primary dervishes can afford to use these enchantments?

Will the breakpoints be set in such a way so that there is a huge difference between staggering force at 12 and 14 (a la Splinter Weapon)?

These are big questions. But if they aren't answered, the dervish will never be the super enchantment-spamming machine it was envisioned as (at least without being either over-or-underpowered).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

It happened with my pets thread, so I'm hoping it'll happen with mysticsm.

Here's hoping your attempts at making Anet and the community at large notice the problem are more successful than mine have been so far.

Lishy · Aug 21, 2009, 04:58 AM // 04:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Here's hoping your attempts at making Anet and the community at large notice the problem are more successful than mine have been so far.

Here's the secret: I hypnotized Linsey

Joking aside, I just think did this thread for shits. If we keep talking about it for awhile, they'll work on it within another year or so.

wilebill · Aug 21, 2009, 05:05 AM // 05:05

Nothing profound from me, just general impressions. After letting my Dervish sit for probably a year, decided to run him through EotN. In days of yore he completed the first three chapters. Time for the Eye.

Got all the derv skills, so tried a lot of builds; except wind, ran out of enthusiasm before I got there. The following remarks are just for PvE normal mode.

Mysticism Builds: Fair at best. If these are the Avatars of the gods, no wonder they don't show up on Tyria anymore. They'd get "pwned" by everything in sight. Favorite Avatar was Grenth, because like in Sparkfly Swamp I could stand at range and use my pulling bow to take down most of the mobs without taking damage. AoE damage from casting enchantments, har; might as well be throwing confetti.

Earth Build: This worked best of all; now I could get in there and swing the scythe at leisure and with most stuff weakened, only worry about hexes and conditions. Speaking of leisure ...

Scythe: A very leisurely weapon. Ought to hit harder than it does to compensate. Wouldn't hurt to get better energy return with a zealous scythe either. My warrior does a much better job with a scythe, but not so good as with a Stunning Strike spear build. And neither so good as the conventional warrior weapons. Depressing.

Energy Management: Carried along Paragon Motivation hero in battery mode, so energy was no problem either with Mysticism or Earth. But without the para battery hero, energy really is a huge problem.

Farming: Next thing to try is farming with the Dervish. Maybe he will be good at that.

reaper with no name · Aug 21, 2009, 05:27 AM // 05:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Here's the secret: I hypnotized Linsey

Joking aside, I just think did this thread for shits. If we keep talking about it for awhile, they'll work on it within another year or so.

Same idea here.

By the way, you misspelled "mysticism".

reaper with no name · Aug 24, 2009, 04:22 AM // 04:22

Ok, some thoughts on how to make dervishes good at PBAoEs (and of course, how to make PBAoEs worth using).

What if the PBAoEs dervishes have inflicted armor-ignoring damage?

Before anyone says "OMG, overpowered!", keep in mind that MSDB can deal around 80 armor-ignoring AoE damage every two seconds. If enchantment spamming via PBAoEs is ever to be a viable tactic, it would have to be better than MSDB at the very least (to justify it's use).

Unfortunately, even this would only allow a dervish to temporarily keep up with an assassin in melee AoE (due to the recharge times of PBAoEs). More still would have to be done (jeez, that's how you know something is underpowered; when making it ignore armor still isn't enough to make it good).

Hmmm...Then again, there's still that idea I had about making mysticism affect recharge times. Ok, how about something like this?

For each rank of mysticism, enchantments cost 5% less energy and recharge 3% faster

This would give dervishes the ability to spam enchantments better than the competition. However, this won't mean much if dervish enchantments aren't worth spamming. There are two ways to make them worth the trouble:

1) Make them do a lot of damage (this requires that they at least exceed what MSDB can do, or else there's still no point in using them)

2) Give them useful utility effects (conditions seem the most likely way to go about this, but Blindness and Weakness are inferior to SY! in that regard, and Poison/Bleeding/Burning/Disease are just damage, so that leaves crippling, cracked armor, and daze)

So, then, perhaps make all dervish PBAoEs deal armor-ignoring damage instead of elemental damage (at least for PvE; wouldn't want to mess up PvP), and change the following skills like so:

Grenth's Fingers
Make it steal life (not sure how much) instead of causing crippling (Aura of Thorns and Veil of Thorns both do that already; there's no need for another skill that causes it; besides, lifesteal seems more appropriate for the touch of the God of death)

Aura of Thorns
Make the crippling last longer (like 5...17 sec instead of 4...9). Turn the Bleeding into damage comparable to other dervish PBAoEs. Increase the cost if necessary.

Staggering Force
Instead of inflicting weakness, inflict daze (it is staggering force, after all, and plus, Armor of Sanctity inflicts weakness now, so having another skill that does so is kind of redundant). This would be a very effective way to buff the skill, because the derv would be able to do a lot of interrupting with all the foes he can hit (especially if combined with Sand Shards).

Heart of Fury
Instead of causing burning (Heart of Holy Flame already does that), make it cause knockdown (that's what you do to people when they make you angry, right?)

Grenth's Aura
Instead of causing foes to lose an enchantment on ending, make it inflict Cracked Armor (why? I have no idea, but it sure makes more sense than Armor of Sanctity inflicting weakness, that's for sure)

Ok, tear it apart.

draxynnic · Aug 24, 2009, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

2) Give them useful utility effects (conditions seem the most likely way to go about this, but Blindness and Weakness are inferior to SY! in that regard, and Poison/Bleeding/Burning/Disease are just damage, so that leaves crippling, cracked armor, and daze)

Or give SY! the tap with the nerfbat it's been begging for - after buffing the rest of Paragondom to make sure this doesn't kill them. (To give a yardstick, +60AL would be roughly equivalent to all enemies having Weakness.)

Quote:

So, then, perhaps make all dervish PBAoEs deal armor-ignoring damage instead of elemental damage (at least for PvE; wouldn't want to mess up PvP)

One would want to be careful about this - the elemental damage is part of the flavour. However, there is precedent for armour-ignoring elemental damage.

Quote:

Staggering Force
Instead of inflicting weakness, inflict daze (it is staggering force, after all, and plus, Armor of Sanctity inflicts weakness now, so having another skill that does so is kind of redundant). This would be a very effective way to buff the skill, because the derv would be able to do a lot of interrupting with all the foes he can hit (especially if combined with Sand Shards).

Might want to have the Daze duration and recharge match Dust Cloak. This may involve buffing the latter, though...

Also, as a note, Sand Shards shouldn't trigger Daze - Daze causes interruptions from being hit by an attack, not by an AoEDoT spell.

Quote:

Heart of Fury
Instead of causing burning (Heart of Holy Flame already does that), make it cause knockdown (that's what you do to people when they make you angry, right?)

Hrrmn. Probably a bit too much in one skill since it's also an IAS. Plus, Staggering Force probably fits better conceptually.

Quote:

Grenth's Aura
Instead of causing foes to lose an enchantment on ending, make it inflict Cracked Armor (why? I have no idea, but it sure makes more sense than Armor of Sanctity inflicting weakness, that's for sure)

I'd leave this one alone. Sure, it isn't used often, but sometimes enchant removal can be something you're REALLY glad to have... and this has the advantage of being enchantment removal that it's a targetted spell.

Quote:

Ok, tear it apart.

How was that?

reaper with no name · Aug 24, 2009, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Not too bad. I was honestly expecting everyone to go "OMG, you're an idiot, this would be so overpowered it would such and such! GTFO!"

However, something I noticed while putting together that idea is that there really aren't that many PBAoEs in the dervish's arsenal. I mean, count them up and then compare it to the number of scythe mastery skills and skills that directly affect it. There's a huge difference. It leads me to wonder if the dervish is really meant for PBAoEs at all.

So then the question becomes, if the dervish wasn't meant for offensive enchantment spam, then what kind of enchantment spam is the dervish meant for?

Here's something interesting. If you add up all the dervish enchantments (including the two PvE skills), there is exactly one less dervish enchantment that has an effect on ending as there are that don't. And Extend Enchantments has a negative effect on ending, so it clearly is not meant to be stripped. So there are 2 more dervish enchantments that benefit from not being stripped as there are which benefit from being stripped (and it's even worse if you consider enchantments from secondary professions).

There are 14 dervish skills that strip enchantments (Extend Enchantments is one of them), 19 skills that benefit from being enchanted (Extend Enchantments also goes in this category), and two skills that don't strip enchantments but benefit from not being enchanted. That means there are 3 more skills that benefit more from not removing enchantments than there are skills that benefit from removing them.

We know enchantments are key to the dervish. What we're not crystal clear on is how. We assume they were meant to spam and strip enchantments from themselves to fuel powerful skills, because they get energy back from mysticism. But is that really what mysticism is for?

At 15 mysticism, you can break even on a 5 energy enchantment. There are 18 dervish enchantments that cost 5 energy. These are the ones that we would expect to be "spammable" if mysticism is indeed intended to fuel enchantment spam (since most dervishes won't have 15 mysticism). Of those 18 5-energy enchantments, only 3 of them (Armor of Sanctity, Vital Boon, and Pious Renewal) have recharge times of 8 or less, and only 1 (Vital Boon) has an effect on end. In other words, when it comes to 5 energy enchantments, the only one that works for enchantment spam is Vital Boon.

Of course, it's also possible Mysticism was only intended to cover part of the cost of enchantment spam (that seems strange, however, since the more you spam 10 energy enchantments, the more energy you lose in spite of mysticism). But of the 21 10-15-energy enchantments, only 3 (Mirage Cloak, Mystic Regeneration, and Arcane Zeal) have recharge times of 8 or less. And only 1 of those (Mirage Cloak) has an effect on ending.

When one looks at it this way, it seems like mysticism was never intended for enchantment spam at all, but for helping the dervish recoup some of the energy lost for the enchantments he uses to buff himself up.

So then, I am forced to wonder: is the dervish actually intended for enchantment spam after all? The last time enchantment stripping was big, Anet nerfed it (specifically, by nerfing Pious Assault). We believe it was because they thought dervishes needed another non-elite source of deep wound (and they may indeed have thought that), but was that all it was?

Enchantment spam sucks; Anet must know that by now. Yet they have done nothing about it. The last significant update the profession had was the last one, and it could be summarized as "more survivability, less healing other people, a bit more unspammable PBAoE".

The only logical conclusion to be drawn from this is that (despite what we would all like) the dervish (as it is currently designed by Anet) is not intended for enchantment spam.

Assuming that this is in fact a valid conclusion and it's no a coincidence that the dervish skillset is geared away from enchantment spam, that leaves us with two big questions:

1) What does Anet believe to be the dervish's purpose?

2) Should we try to steer Anet away from their vision of the profession (whatever it might be) towards what we believe it should be like (an enchantment spammer)?

Reverend Dr · Aug 24, 2009, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Not too bad. I was honestly expecting everyone to go "OMG, you're an idiot, this would be so overpowered it would such and such! GTFO!"

I'll be honest, I didn't read it. I'm not going to read it. It is an idea that isn't going to ever go in front of Anet's balance team, it will never be considered, and it will never be implemented; there is no reason for me to read it.

Dervishes are not underpowered as far as the game itself, they have just not been as able to take advantage of the retarded overpowered shit that was added as well as the other classes.

The answer to the situation is most certainly not, "buff dervishes." Next week when dervishes etch out someone else's niche we'll be in the same situation, but with different class being called to be buffed. The answer is also not "nerf non-dervishes." By and large the PvE crowd just cannot deal with having something taken away and there is no way to sugar-coat a nerf of this level that the crowd would perceive it as anything other than taking stuff away.

As a developer, no matter what you do in this situation, it going to hurt your game.

reaper with no name · Aug 24, 2009, 08:23 PM // 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Dervishes are not underpowered as far as the game itself, they have just not been as able to take advantage of the retarded overpowered shit that was added as well as the other classes.

That's the same as admitting they're underpowered.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

The answer to the situation is most certainly not, "buff dervishes." Next week when dervishes etch out someone else's niche we'll be in the same situation, but with different class being called to be buffed. The answer is also not "nerf non-dervishes." By and large the PvE crowd just cannot deal with having something taken away and there is no way to sugar-coat a nerf of this level that the crowd would perceive it as anything other than taking stuff away.

As a developer, no matter what you do in this situation, it going to hurt your game.

The same could be said of Ursan. What happened? They nerfed it, and people who weren't r10 Norn could get into PUGs again.

Honestly, I don't care how the problem gets fixed, so long as it does. That's why in the thread I made with the poll I included an option to just give dervishes more unique stuff like AoM and AoD. That would introduce some balance which is currently lacking, as would making dervishes the best scythe users or reworking the profession (well, the latter only if it's done right).

Saying that it's ok for dervishes to suck at everything is like saying that it was ok for rits to suck, that it was ok for Ursan to make every other build worthless, that it's ok for SF to do a similiar thing now, that it's ok for ER eles to outheal heal monks and outprot prot monks at the same time. These things are problems. Every profession should have something it can do well. Otherwise, they shouldn't exist at all. Dervishes are here, and they're not going away. One way or another, they need to be fixed, just like any other failure of game balance. If we're not going to consider fixing dervishes, then we might as well just forget about fixing any imbalance in the game and just leaving everything as it is until the end of time.

Tenebrae · Aug 24, 2009, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

That's the same as admitting they're underpowered.

Not really

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The same could be said of Ursan. What happened? They nerfed it, and people who weren't r10 Norn could get into PUGs again.

Thats not true soz.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Honestly, I don't care how the problem gets fixed, so long as it does. That's why in the thread I made with the poll I included an option to just give dervishes more unique stuff like AoM and AoD. That would introduce some balance which is currently lacking, as would making dervishes the best scythe users or reworking the profession (well, the latter only if it's done right).
.

The thing is that i dont think they see "a problem" so on best case , expect a little "buff" like did to ritualists SP and skills energy cost, cast or somethin. Just my 2 cents .

trankle · Aug 24, 2009, 10:51 PM // 22:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Before anyone says "OMG, overpowered!", keep in mind that MSDB can deal around 80 armor-ignoring AoE damage every two seconds. If enchantment spamming via PBAoEs is ever to be a viable tactic, it would have to be better than MSDB at the very least (to justify it's use).

Not to put too fine a point on it, but:

1. MSDB can deal that damage every two seconds in spurts, but not constantly. When their target dies, the chain needs to start up again before it gets back to those numbers.

2. I wouldn't say that say that a damage source has to be better than another to be viable; I think being comparable is good enough. Also keep in mind that while a sin may be doing more pure damage, a derv using PBAoE is also inflicting conditions that affect enemy movement, ability to hit, and potential for damage.

3. Also keep in mind that a sin has to be able to hit to deal those damage numbers. While a good team is going to build itself to address blocking/blindness/miss hexes/etc, those are concerns that are not built into PBAoE spell damage. While spellcasting counters do exist, they are not as prevalent as melee counters, in my experience.

That said, I do think some buffs are in order.

PvE sins have a fantastic skill in Critical Agility, that gives maintainable armor and IAS, based on the sin's effectiveness in battle. Heart of Fury (PvE) should have the potential to be similarly maintainable, perhaps with a shorter initial duration, but a re-application when hitting a foe with a condition. Or when hitting multiple foes, etc. It would be a start...

Axel Zinfandel · Aug 25, 2009, 12:33 AM // 00:33

I agree that the skills need to be more worthwhile moreso then the effect of mysticism itself buffed.

The problem with Mysticism is the skills focus on things that either Earth Prayers or Wind Prayers do better. Energy gain and Self-healing is trumped by Wind Prayers. self-healing itself is less useful then protection in PvE, which Earth Prayers is amazing at. The skills need to do more to help Dervs in other areas
.
Balthazar's Rage needs a rework. It fails as a self heal skill, because it isn't on demand. maybe it'd be useful if it didn't have a duration at all, but even then. I'd like to see this skill reworked to help Dervs on the offensive front. maybe a bit of Armor penetration for the duration. Same with Heart of Holy Flame

Eremite's Zeal/Meditation isn't bad, but attacker's insight is more useful even at low WP.

Extend Enchantment's idea is good, but the functionality itself makes it useless for anything save a few skills.

Faithful Intervention/Mystic Vigor is fine. bad, but fine.

Watchful Intervention should be more useful in general. Either lower the recharge, or tone it down and make it work like Angelic Bond

Heart of Fury needs to be more easily maintainable, and if that's too much for Anet to consider, make it 25% and maintainable.

Imbue Health needs a lower recharge. Skills like these make Dervishes a backup healer, which is mostly useless in PvE, because only reliable healers are wanted, and other classes should be focusing on other rolls.

Mystic Corruption is useless, because asside from EDA and WS (which are fast to reapply), dervishes do not inflict any important conditions

Pious Fury/Pious Haste aren't useful in most cases.

Zealous Renewal, although used by people who don't know Attacker's Insight is better on every level, is useless, with Balthazar's Rage because it isn't on demand.

For elites, Pious Renewal needs a buff. It added with Mysticism makes for poor energy management, laughable health gain, and most of the time you'll be recasting it.

Vow of Silence is awesome as is, but no one would complain if the "Cannot cast spells" was replaced with something else.

Avatar of Balthazar is the only form that needs a buff. It has needed a buff. All of its' effects can be replicated by other skills (and then some with the recent updates. AoHM+Conviction is better, and no one needs IMS in battle)

Arcane Zeal is only usable by orders dervs, which without Vow of Piety, are not as good as before (though still good.). Buffing it for regular dervs without killing Orders Dervs would be nice.

There's my 2 cents.

Kattar · Aug 25, 2009, 01:19 AM // 01:19

This is the only active Dervish thread I've seen in the last day or say. That's why I'm leaving it open.

If anyone has any further questions, please pm me.

Ferminator · Aug 25, 2009, 07:01 AM // 07:01

As a true dervish lover I would like to say this.......

(the preceding comment was censored)

that is all.

Actually I think the energy gain from mysticsm sucks if you aren't taking 6 enchantments and using mystic sandstorm.

Lishy · Aug 25, 2009, 08:06 AM // 08:06

Well, I guess I'll share my suggestions or comments for the skills Axel wants changed

Quote: