Curse

Cuilan · Aug 25, 2010, 04:53 AM // 04:53

The idea was that people play with what they find fun with whatever that is, not just play the best because other players view it as better.

fr.aodhan · Aug 25, 2010, 05:09 AM // 05:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Every class has tons of useless skills. The dervish is no exception. That is not going to change. The game isn't big enough for every skill to be useful.

The argument goes, then, that because other classes have useless skills, the skills which suggest a juggling or bombing build shouldn't be updated? The mind boggles.

Quote:

Scythe attack spam just happens to be the best way to use the dervish. And that is unlikely to ever change. To delude ourselves into thinking otherwise is to set ourselves up for disappointment.

At this point, the best you have to offer is cynicism. We get the message. There are enough naysayers around that nobody is able to get their hopes up for too long. We would have been able to manage our letdown without your (admittedly dedicated) public service. Can we get back to deluding ourselves? To talking about how things could be changed positively, rather than why they won't?

Quote:

But please, don't confuse my positions on this matter with aversion to enchantment juggling.

No one has made that mistake. You oversimplify the game into defense and damage, read the Meta as gospel, and seem to believe that some updates are so risky that they shouldn't even be discussed, lest we encourage Anet to do something wasteful. That's a heck of a lot worse than having a preference about playing styles.

saint666 · Aug 25, 2010, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The difference between true AoE and scythes hitting multiple foes is miniscule.

really, no difference? 3 targets vs infinite targets. something is wrong with the math.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Stop twisting my words. I was talking about the enchantments that can be used for enchantment juggling. None of the worthwhile enchantments (AoHM, HoF) can be juggled. Their recharges and energy costs are too high.

Thanks for stating the obvious, you know why the dervish needs to be fixed? It's not hard to imagine how you can go about buffing them, if you have imagination.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Enchantment juggling can only be useful if something else doesn't render it completely redundant. Unless we start seeing Pious Assault-like skills with +100 damage or massive nerfs to every form of melee AoE (scythes, daggers, you name it), then enchantment juggling will always be rendered redundant by other methods of damage. And by redundant, I mean "lacking a unique combination of offense and defense that something else can't do better".

If you don't come up with a better argument, they will become redundant as everyone is telling you how redundant they are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The dervish class itself is not underpowered. It is technically overpowered. However, warriors and assassins are even more overpowered. Therefore, logically speaking, nerfing the overpowered makes more sense than buffing the slightly-less overpowered.

Logically speaking the dervish is sup par to the standard that exist or has become today. Frankly it's easier to just delete the dervish than undo everything everything EoTN has added. It will conserve resources for anet to focus on things that are more important.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The dervish already has the option to juggle enchantments. Are you saying that enchantment juggling should be a worthwhile option? That's not likely to happen. As I've noted more times than I care to count, the buffs are unreasonably massive. Do you really think Anet will give us a Pious Assault type skill that deals +100 damage? Or a Staggering Force with armor-ignoring damage, 5 energy cost, 1/4 cast, and a 3 second recharge? Do you really think Anet will give us all of these things at once? These are the kinds of buffs we are talking about for enchantment juggling to be a worthwhile option. Anet didn't even have the balls to Smiter's Boon SF; how on earth would they have the balls to give us buffs like that?

Right going OOM while casting enchantments and waiting a long time for them to recharge is quite an option in your opinion?. That would classify AoHM as a juggled enchantment wouldn't it. Lol quit mentioning SF the fact they buffed it in the first place shows how far they will go. I told you, they have to make all scythe attacks fail with 4 mysticism or less if they want to stop assassins and warriors doing it better. You really think anet dumb enough to do that? Or we can have your scythe idea, we know how popular it is with everyone shooting it down. So the safest way to give the dervish buffs is via enchantments logically speaking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Other people see it as an option because they don't realize just how high the wall is. They don't realize that just stopping to cast the enchantment that you want to juggle makes you lose nearly 100 dps.

right you are the only one that knows and no one else does. I'm pretty sure why people disagree with you is because they realize how full of holes your arguments are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

There is a big difference in what should happen and what is likely to happen. Dervishes should be doing more damage to multiple targets than any other class via enchantment juggling. Elementalists should nuke better than Monks, Mesmers, Necromancers, and Ritualists. Monks should heal better than Elementalists. Warriors should not be able to do insane amounts of AoE damage. Rangers should deal more damage with bows than Ritualists. Assassins should not be effective against multiple targets. Warriors should not be capable of effectively utilizing any energy-dependent weapon. SF should not exist. PvE-Only skills should not exist. Damage cap skills should not be a requirement for successful HM play.

Dervishes should be doing more damage to multiple targets than any other class via enchantment juggling. you said it. It seems easier than trying to carve a sliver in a role that already been saturated and beaten to death by assassins and warriors and try to make them all balanced at the same time anyways.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Since none of those other flaws so deeply ingrained in the game are going to be fixed, what makes you think that enchantment juggling will?

That really depends on how much they like the dervish, it's not that bad as a storage character anyways.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Every class has tons of useless skills. The dervish is no exception. That is not going to change. The game isn't big enough for every skill to be useful. That's why GW2 is going to have fewer skills.

lol the dervish is the exception that 3 out of it's 4 trees is useless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

I don't like scythe attack spam any more than I like the fact that a Necromancer with SS and nothing else can outnuke the entire Elementalist class. Scythe attack spam just happens to be the best way to use the dervish. And that is unlikely to ever change. To delude ourselves into thinking otherwise is to set ourselves up for disappointment. I want to evolve the class so that it has a use. Doesn't matter what that use is. Scythe attack spam just happens to be the most reasonable option.

But please, don't confuse my positions on this matter with aversion to enchantment juggling. I love the concept. I just don't see Anet actually doing anything big enough to it to make it worthwhile. I mean, if you have ideas that will do the job of making enchantment juggling worthwhile (some of saint's ideas show promise), I'll definitely stamp my /signed on them, but that won't make them more likely to actually be implemented.

Lol dude, it's already depressing and disappointing listening to you. The self conflicts in your own arguments is actually kind of funny. You agree that enchantment juggling should happen, you don't like scythe spamming but yet insists upon it because you're afraid anet won't be able to do otherwise. Lol, it's true cynicism is all you have to offer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The game has become so unbalanced that without the largest buffs in the game's history (or corresponding massive nerfs to everything else), enchantment juggling will never be worthwhile. Since such changes are about as likely as Anet Smiter's Booning Protective Spirit, it is a lost cause and we should focus on other things. Of these things, scythe attack spam is the most likely thing to work.

Scythe attack spam buff only = buffs to assassins and warriors, without limiting scythe attacks to only dervishes, which is unlikely to happen, and will result in the same imbalance. Buffing Scythe attacks and enchantments together could solve this problem in a way that's both more fun and creative than making every scythe attack fail with 4 mysticism or less.

reaper with no name · Aug 26, 2010, 05:53 AM // 05:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by saint666

really, no difference? 3 targets vs infinite targets. something is wrong with the math.

Thanks for stating the obvious, you know why the dervish needs to be fixed? It's not hard to imagine how you can go about buffing them, if you have imagination.

If you don't come up with a better argument, they will become redundant as everyone is telling you how redundant they are.

Logically speaking the dervish is sup par to the standard that exist or has become today. Frankly it's easier to just delete the dervish than undo everything everything EoTN has added. It will conserve resources for anet to focus on things that are more important.

Right going OOM while casting enchantments and waiting a long time for them to recharge is quite an option in your opinion?. That would classify AoHM as a juggled enchantment wouldn't it. Lol quit mentioning SF the fact they buffed it in the first place shows how far they will go. I told you, they have to make all scythe attacks fail with 4 mysticism or less if they want to stop assassins and warriors doing it better. You really think anet dumb enough to do that? Or we can have your scythe idea, we know how popular it is with everyone shooting it down. So the safest way to give the dervish buffs is via enchantments logically speaking.

right you are the only one that knows and no one else does. I'm pretty sure why people disagree with you is because they realize how full of holes your arguments are.

Dervishes should be doing more damage to multiple targets than any other class via enchantment juggling. you said it. It seems easier than trying to carve a sliver in a role that already been saturated and beaten to death by assassins and warriors and try to make them all balanced at the same time anyways.

That really depends on how much they like the dervish, it's not that bad as a storage character anyways.

lol the dervish is the exception that 3 out of it's 4 trees is useless.

Lol dude, it's already depressing and disappointing listening to you. The self conflicts in your own arguments is actually kind of funny. You agree that enchantment juggling should happen, you don't like scythe spamming but yet insists upon it because you're afraid anet won't be able to do otherwise. Lol, it's true cynicism is all you have to offer.

Scythe attack spam buff only = buffs to assassins and warriors, without limiting scythe attacks to only dervishes, which is unlikely to happen, and will result in the same imbalance. Buffing Scythe attacks and enchantments together could solve this problem in a way that's both more fun and creative than making every scythe attack fail with 4 mysticism or less.

The only situation where true AoE would be better than being able to hit 3 targets is the very same situation in which Hundred Blades owns everything. Therefore, there is little point in considering it, unless you're trying to say that enchantment juggling should occupy a role between scythes and HB. But I don't think you are.

The meta is the standard that other builds are compared against.

Cynicism is better than being naive. I have yet to see a single idea for fixing enchantment juggling that would actually make it worth using that doesn't involve massive buffing.

Enchantment juggling is a form of melee. As long as it is melee, it will continue to be in the melee role, which means it will have to carve out a niche just like scythes, daggers, and every other form of melee.

Once again, buffing for the sake of buffing is a bad idea. If you're just looking for fun, it doesn't matter if something is good so long as it does the job. The dervish is more than good enough to get the job done. So, the only reason to buff anything on the dervish is to make it optimal for some situation. Being inferior to the competition by a small amount is still being inferior. So, buffs that do not serve the purpose of making the dervish optimal for some situation don't serve any purpose other than worthless power creep.

It's actually not that hard to make dervishes better with the scythe than the competition. It can be done with a couple of strategic skill changes. Making enchantment juggling worthwhile is much, much harder.

Damage and defense is all there is to PvE, with the exception of certain mobility increases that serve the purpose of reducing travel time (such as "Charge!"). Everything else can be boiled down to one or both of those two things. Snares? Decrease the damage of melee and increase the damage of AoE. Interrupts? Prevents damage. Resurrection? Nullifies damage taken by a party member. Degen? Damage. Frozen Soil? Preventing resurrection means one less enemy you have to kill, which makes it a form of damage. Energy management? Allows you to inflict more damage or prevent more damage than you otherwise would have been able to.

Fixing the dervish the right way is possible. But just because something is possible doesn't mean it is likely or worth the risk if one screws it up. It's depressing, but it is not contradicting.

Nechrond · Aug 26, 2010, 09:20 AM // 09:20

But really, is it that hard to come up with changes we can all support? Because anything we come up with that nobody disagrees with, we could post in the suggestions forum. If we want to get something done, we should work together instead of bickering. This means that if someone suggests a change that isn't detrimental and has even the slightest positive effect, we should all support it. Changing subtle things is NOT hard for the devs, deciding what those changes should be is. If we could post a thread that contains only suggestions and short explanations of why we think those suggestions are good/bad (and NO endless rants about whether or not PBAoE and scythe are more closely related than axe and sword and NO doomsday sermons about how Anet will never get it right anyway), they WILL listen to us.

saint666 · Aug 26, 2010, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The only situation where true AoE would be better than being able to hit 3 targets is the very same situation in which Hundred Blades owns everything. Therefore, there is little point in considering it, unless you're trying to say that enchantment juggling should occupy a role between scythes and HB. But I don't think you are.

What I am saying is that dervishes should have the option to have choices for whatever a certain situations requires, rather than one narrow rigid definition of a role of what it should only do. Enchantment juggling can offer true AoE as well as enhance single target damage at the same time, it really a win win situation. You don't think it's possible, so lets agree to disagree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Cynicism is better than being naive. I have yet to see a single idea for fixing enchantment juggling that would actually make it worth using that doesn't involve massive buffing.

It doesn't really make a difference whether they buff the dervish or not, it would actually be better for the meta if the didn't. I am only stating the possibilities, what are your actual ideas other than saying what can't be done, if you have a great idea we're still waiting to hear it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Enchantment juggling is a form of melee. As long as it is melee, it will continue to be in the melee role, which means it will have to carve out a niche just like scythes, daggers, and every other form of melee.

It's close range nuking with spell damage in addition to enhancing the melee role the dervish already has.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Once again, buffing for the sake of buffing is a bad idea. If you're just looking for fun, it doesn't matter if something is good so long as it does the job. The dervish is more than good enough to get the job done. So, the only reason to buff anything on the dervish is to make it optimal for some situation. Being inferior to the competition by a small amount is still being inferior. So, buffs that do not serve the purpose of making the dervish optimal for some situation don't serve any purpose other than worthless power creep.

Games=/=fun okay. I wouldn't worry about enchantment juggling not being powerful enough, power creep maybe. They have a balance team right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

It's actually not that hard to make dervishes better with the scythe than the competition. It can be done with a couple of strategic skill changes. Making enchantment juggling worthwhile is much, much harder.

It's not hard at all making dervishes better with scythes, it just too easy and lame to the point where it's not even interesting. Lets hear your ideas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Fixing the dervish the right way is possible. But just because something is possible doesn't mean it is likely or worth the risk if one screws it up. It's depressing, but it is not contradicting.

Risk/reward factor, the fun factor is quite high on this one. It's only a game, if it fails, fix it again, anet even said they aren't gunna be done with the dervish even after the update. If you had the chance to do it the right way, why do it the wrong way?

Desert Rose · Aug 27, 2010, 08:32 AM // 08:32

The main reason why enchantment juggling is not worthwhile is the activation time of Mystic Sweep, Eremite's Attack, and to a lesser degree Protector's Strike, and the damage a scythe can deal with these skills; either the activation time of the two dervish skills need to be removed and the warrior skills need to be workable with warrior weapons only or the dervish needs attack skills with a fixed attack speed that supports enchantment juggling, i.e.:

Pious Assault (PvE)
5, 3/4, 12
You lose 1 enchantment. If this attack hits, you deal +10...34 damage. If an enchantment was removed, this signet recharges instantly.

Other changes to make enchantment juggling more worthwhile:

Mysticism
Double energy gain (and maybe double health gain) if a dervish enchantment ended on you.

Enchantment fitting for enchantment juggling:
Recharge time reduced by 20-25%.
Damage is pulsating instead of onetime damage (to make it stronger in conjunction with Ebon Battle Standard of Honor).

Of course such a dervish will still deal far less damage than a scythe dervish or even scythe sin, and therefor be nearly useless for high-end groups, but his combination of quite impressive damage and medicore to good support (cripple, blind, knockdown) might be a good pick for a less organized team, i.e. a PUG or H/H.

saint666 · Aug 27, 2010, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desert Rose

Enchantment fitting for enchantment juggling:
Recharge time reduced by 20-25%.
Damage is pulsating instead of onetime damage (to make it stronger in conjunction with Ebon Battle Standard of Honor).

Of course such a dervish will still deal far less damage than a scythe dervish or even scythe sin, and therefor be nearly useless for high-end groups, but his combination of quite impressive damage and medicore to good support (cripple, blind, knockdown) might be a good pick for a less organized team, i.e. a PUG or H/H.

That's a neat idea, like multiple sand shards. It could potentially provide decent nuking and snares for more organized groups depending on the magnitude of the buffs of course, something along the lines of the Mesmer buff maybe.

fr.aodhan · Aug 27, 2010, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by saint666

That's a neat idea, like multiple sand shards. It could potentially provide decent nuking and snares for more organized groups depending on the magnitude of the buffs of course, something along the lines of the Mesmer buff maybe.

Along similar lines, I'd prefer Removal over Time (RoT) - I know it doesn't deserve an acronym, but suspend disbelief for just a second.

The original idea of all these enchantments, that they do something on ending, works for me. Doing a spike of damage on ending synchronizes with the "spike" from Mysticism, so it makes in-world sense. I always thought that Sand Shards was a little weird that way. I'm over here. My shards are over there, rotating around nothing.

Imagine, though, being able to load up on enchantments and cast a single spell that removes them sequentially. You have a customizable DoT which many enemies won't flee. And if they do flee, you follow. For instance, you could cripple, blind, bleed, weaken in a span of four seconds (not counting the precast), all the while doing something else with yourself; e.g. adding recharged enchantments back to the stack. The Dervish becomes the center of a (damage/condition/heal/enchant remover) over time. We can spend our time maintaining the stack rather than waiting for our various removal skills to recharge.

We have something like this in Mystic Sandstorm, which periodically removes everything simultaneously, but we know its limitations.

reaper with no name · Aug 29, 2010, 05:46 AM // 05:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nechrond

But really, is it that hard to come up with changes we can all support? Because anything we come up with that nobody disagrees with, we could post in the suggestions forum. If we want to get something done, we should work together instead of bickering. This means that if someone suggests a change that isn't detrimental and has even the slightest positive effect, we should all support it. Changing subtle things is NOT hard for the devs, deciding what those changes should be is. If we could post a thread that contains only suggestions and short explanations of why we think those suggestions are good/bad (and NO endless rants about whether or not PBAoE and scythe are more closely related than axe and sword and NO doomsday sermons about how Anet will never get it right anyway), they WILL listen to us.

Actually, Anet doesn't read suggestion threads (except those on the official wiki). They aren't allowed to. But I suppose that might just be their party line to avoid litigation if they just so happen to implement something someone suggested (like making FC affect recharge times, as everyone and their grandma brought it up in that mesmer thread).

"What? No, we weren't reading their ideas."

But yeah, I guess we should really stop this meaningless squabbling.

Pious Renewal (PvE)
For 8 seconds, whenever a dervish enchantment ends on you, you gain 0...2 energy and all nearby foes are interrupted. Fails with 3 or less mysticism.

Won't do anything on it's own, but if enchantments become more spammable, might give dervs their own version of Panic.

Vow of Strength (PvE)
15 energy, 2 activation, 60 recharge
For 5...17 seconds, you take no damage from attacks. However, you take double damage from spells. This spell cannot be instantly recharged or have it's recharge time reduced. Fails with 3 or less mysticism.

Similar concept to SF, except not immune to it's primary counters (spells).

Guiding Hands
Your next 0...2 attacks are unblockable and cannot miss.

Gives dervs a handy counter to blindness and miss hexes (never mind that it actually relates more to what the skill's name implies than the current functionality).

Mystic Healing
0 activation and no aftercast delay; otherwise identical to current functionality.

The inability to cast and attack at the same time is one of the fundamental reasons why skills such as this rarely see play.

As for directly improving enchantment juggling...Well, I think I mentioned one way in the past (multiple times, actually), so I'll go with another approach:

Pious Assault (PvE)
5 energy, 1 activation, 12 recharge
Lose 1 dervish enchantment. Deals +10...50 damage. If an enchantment was removed, this skill recharges instantly.

Twin Moon Sweep (PvE)
Removes only dervish enchantments. If enchantment is removed, have the skill recharge instantly as well.

Staggering Force (PvE)
Heart of Holy Flame (PvE)
Dust Cloak (PvE)
Grenth's Fingers (PvE)
Energy costs reduced to 5. Activation times become 0 (leaving only the .75 second aftercast delay). Recharge times reduced to 3. Damage becomes armor-ignoring.

Aura of Thorns (PvE)
5 energy, 0 activation, 3 recharge
All adjacent foes are struck for 20...68 earth damage (armor-ignoring). For 30 seconds does nothing. On ending, inflicts bleeding on nearby foes for 4...9 seconds.

Mysticism
Revert.

Some back of the envelope calculations tell me one might be able to get somewhere around 100 dps out of this. In my opinion, that's still not enough to be competitive in this meta, but it could still be buffed further.

Avatars
Sadly, I can't really think of any way to make the avatars really desirable without making them affect the rest of the party in some way. So, with a few minor drawbacks thrown in to make them more unique, here we go:

Avatar of Balthazar (PvE)
5 energy, 2 activation, 30 recharge
For 10...74 seconds, you gain +40 armor, you move 33% faster, and all party members attack 33% faster. You have -5 energy.

Left in the armor and IMS, because it needs something besides just the offensive support (the avatars always seem to do at least two things). Gave it -5 energy because warriors have crappy energy, and Balth is their patron.

Avatar of Melandru (PvE)
5 energy, 2 activation, 30 recharge
For 10...74 seconds, you have +100 health, and the party loses one condition each time you use a skill. Hexes on you last 10% longer.

Don't know why Melandru does the condition thing, but it does. And so it remains, albeit in a party-wide sense. Hexes really aren't Melandru's thing, so the penalty relates to those.

Avatar of Dwayna (PvE)
5 energy, 2 activation, 30 recharge
For 10...74 seconds, whenever you use a skill, you gain 15...51 health and each party member loses one hex. You have -5 armor.

Party-wide hex removal. Really, the only other avatar that could possibly do this sort of thing is Lyssa, and it seems to be more concerned with energy and stuff. Has -armor because monks are squishy.

Avatar of Lyssa (PvE)
5 energy, 2 activation, 30 recharge
For 10...74 seconds, your scythe attacks interrupt foes, and all party members have +10 maximum energy (will not stack from multiple sources). You have -30 health.

Why this? The real question is, why wasn't it doing this before? And again, Mesmers are squishy (could've easily been switched with the Dwayna downside, except that monk armor gives +15 hp, so AoD couldn't have gotten the -health one).

Avatar of Grenth (PvE)
5 energy, 2 activation, 30 recharge
For 10...74 seconds, your attacks steal 5...17 life, and other party members are healed for 5...17. They can only be healed in this way once per second. You have -1 health degeneration.

We generally think of Dwayna as the healer, but we often forget that not only is this not always true (Ritualist), but that healing while dealing damage is actually Grenth's thing (Vampirism, blood magic, etc). Plus, she's already got the hex removal thing going on with her avatar, and removing hexes doesn't feel right for Grenth. Life degen because necromancers cut themselves.

Avatar of Grenth (PvP)
Revert to Avatar of Grenth (PvE)'s current functionality. With the changes to Aegis, anti-blocking alone just isn't enough any more.

Neky · Aug 29, 2010, 09:12 AM // 09:12

^ I'd love to see those changes, so I can dust off my derv, and account as well.

BadBot · Aug 29, 2010, 02:46 PM // 14:46

something in the lines:

for every point of mysticsm the scythe you weild increases range for 5%
so

0 mysticism = adiacent
16 mysticism = nearby

Burjis · Aug 29, 2010, 03:14 PM // 15:14

Some of the ideas of reaper_with_no_name seems quite interesting but I thought I should make some comments about some:

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Vow of Strength (PvE)
15 energy, 2 activation, 60 recharge
For 5...17 seconds, you take no damage from attacks. However, you take double damage from spells. This spell cannot be instantly recharged or have it's recharge time reduced. Fails with 3 or less mysticism.

Even if this functionality is useful (which I doubt considering the "double damage from spells" part, this skill would still be useless with such a high energy requirement + the massive cast time + the high recharge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Guiding Hands
Your next 0...2 attacks are unblockable and cannot miss.

Very good suggestion. Although I doubt they would implement a "cannot miss" functionality in the game but if they add a blindness removal effect it can be much more effective than what it already is. The effect can be personal or party wide. If they make it party wide, it can be a good skill for structured PvP. The 30 seconds recharge is still high though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Mystic Healing
0 activation and no after-cast delay; otherwise identical to current functionality.
The inability to cast and attack at the same time is one of the fundamental reasons why skills such as this rarely see play.

I agree with your reason why a lot of dervish healing skills are rarely used: Their cast time. The role of a Dervish is hardly healing. These skills should have more synergy with the other builds of this profession and designed in a way that can be used as a boon to their main roles.
0 activation is a bit too much to hope for though. A 1/4 cast time or even a 1/2 cast time would be great.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Pious Assault (PvE)
5 energy, 1 activation, 12 recharge
Lose 1 dervish enchantment. Deals +10...50 damage. If an enchantment was removed, this skill recharges instantly.

Did you remove the deep wound effect intentionally?

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Staggering Force (PvE)
Heart of Holy Flame (PvE)
Dust Cloak (PvE)
Grenth's Fingers (PvE)
Energy costs reduced to 5. Activation times become 0 (leaving only the .75 second aftercast delay). Recharge times reduced to 3. Damage becomes armor-ignoring.

I think the energy cost reduction would be sufficient in most cases. Although I would like to see that changed for both PvE and PvP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Aura of Thorns (PvE)
5 energy, 0 activation, 3 recharge
All adjacent foes are struck for 20...68 earth damage (armor-ignoring). For 30 seconds does nothing. On ending, inflicts bleeding on nearby foes for 4...9 seconds.

I don't think this skill needs changing.

I barely have any opinion on the avatar changes you suggested but I don't think the party effects would bode well with balancing purposes.

Nechrond · Aug 29, 2010, 04:00 PM // 16:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Actually, Anet doesn't read suggestion threads (except those on the official wiki). They aren't allowed to.

They officially don't, but of course they do.

Quote:

Pious Renewal (PvE)
For 8 seconds, whenever a dervish enchantment ends on you, you gain 0...2 energy and all nearby foes are interrupted. Fails with 3 or less mysticism.

I like the interrupt. Perhaps remove the energy gain, give the interrupting an energy cost so that it synergizes with what Mysticism actually does? That way, you could remove the Mysticism 3 requirement. And then add just a bit of holy damage.

Quote:

Twin Moon Sweep (PvE)
Removes only dervish enchantments. If enchantment is removed, have the skill recharge instantly as well.

Not sure about it removing only Derv enchantments. People might want to combine it with Life Sheath. But I agree 100% with the instant recharge.

Quote:

Avatars
Sadly, I can't really think of any way to make the avatars really desirable without making them affect the rest of the party in some way.

Whatever they do about the Avatars, they should get rid of the ridiculous disable. I like your versions of the Avatars, but only for PvE. The Pious Renewal and Twin Moon Sweep changes would be good for PvP as well.

EDIT: I have a very good idea for Pious Assault. It shouldn't recharge itself instantly, it should have "If one of your Dervish enchantments was removed this way, that enchantment recharges instantly" (Derv-specific to prevent Mark of Protection lameness).

Verene · Aug 29, 2010, 05:11 PM // 17:11

The biggest problem with the Avatars is the long disable, I think. The main reason why I gave up on them was because I didn't like having to use another slot to make that skill viable. Also because Zealous Vow is amazing and I love spamming attack skills for free far too much

I'm not sure what they should do with Mysticism, but clearly something needs to be done with it. I kind of like the idea of changing the health/energy return to a percentage of the initial energy cost of the enchantment. Since really, the health return is pretty much negligible anyway. I also recall in previous threads the idea of an IAS percentage being tied in to Mysticism (for each rank you attack x% faster, that sort of thing).

AoHM needs to be tied into Mysticism. Full stop. Critical Agility is tied into Critical Strikes, so why the heck didn't they tie AoHM to Mysticism to begin with? That probably wouldn't completely solve the problem of scythe abuse by other professions, but it would go a long way to helping.

Heart of Fury needs to be maintainable, or at least almost maintainable. Lower the recharge to 20 seconds or something. Then at 12 Myst you've only got a 3 second downtime, or none at all if you have an enchantment mod on your scythe.

Also, while certainly necessary in no way, I'd like to see some more done with blocking. I mean, wielding a huge freaking scythe, that's pretty likely to get in the way of things. Something like "While wielding a scythe, you have x...y...z% chance to block a melee attack". Where this could be fitted in, I have no idea, but it was something that came to mind.

reaper with no name · Aug 29, 2010, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nechrond

Not sure about it removing only Derv enchantments. People might want to combine it with Life Sheath. But I agree 100% with the instant recharge.

EDIT: I have a very good idea for Pious Assault. It shouldn't recharge itself instantly, it should have "If one of your Dervish enchantments was removed this way, that enchantment recharges instantly" (Derv-specific to prevent Mark of Protection lameness).

I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of accidentally removing Protective Spirit just because my monk happened to cast it on me right then.

Nechrond · Aug 30, 2010, 06:49 AM // 06:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea of accidentally removing Protective Spirit just because my monk happened to cast it on me right then.

Or Strength of Honor because you get hit by enchantment removal just as you press the button for your attack, for that matter :P I see your point, and you may be right, I'm just not completely sure about it. What did you think about the rest of my ideas?

fr.aodhan · Aug 30, 2010, 07:08 AM // 07:08

I'd be interested in Dervish skills removing the enchantment (Dervish or not) closest to expiring. Closest as a percentage of its total duration, of course - I wouldn't want to keep stripping a powerful 3 second enchantment over a Watchful Intervention with 5 seconds left. Maintained enchantments come last. This would mean that we wouldn't follow the normal stack order, but it would allow us to be a little more flippant with enchantment removal skills, as we're just accelerating the inevitable, not stripping the enchantment we (or someone else) thought was necessary a couple of seconds ago.

This shouldn't be a global mechanic change, though. If someone casts a short, powerful enchantment and covers it with a longer enchantment, you could strip the shorter enchantment through the longer one. You would have to cover with a shorter enchantment, which doesn't make sense and isn't even feasible in some cases.

reaper with no name · Aug 30, 2010, 07:54 AM // 07:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burjis

Some of the ideas of reaper_with_no_name seems quite interesting but I thought I should make some comments about some:

Even if this functionality is useful (which I doubt considering the "double damage from spells" part, this skill would still be useless with such a high energy requirement + the massive cast time + the high recharge.

Very good suggestion. Although I doubt they would implement a "cannot miss" functionality in the game but if they add a blindness removal effect it can be much more effective than what it already is. The effect can be personal or party wide. If they make it party wide, it can be a good skill for structured PvP. The 30 seconds recharge is still high though.

I agree with your reason why a lot of dervish healing skills are rarely used: Their cast time. The role of a Dervish is hardly healing. These skills should have more synergy with the other builds of this profession and designed in a way that can be used as a boon to their main roles.
0 activation is a bit too much to hope for though. A 1/4 cast time or even a 1/2 cast time would be great.

Did you remove the deep wound effect intentionally?

I think the energy cost reduction would be sufficient in most cases. Although I would like to see that changed for both PvE and PvP.

I don't think this skill needs changing.

I barely have any opinion on the avatar changes you suggested but I don't think the party effects would bode well with balancing purposes.

Deep wound can only be applied once per enemy. Trading it for more +dmg is well worth the trade. Besides, there are scythe elites to provide DW.

5 energy enchantments that take 1.75 seconds to cast and do nothing except a 60 armor-sensitive AoE are, well, crap. Even if you had enchantment removal skills that did +200 damage, skills with quicker recharge times would be chosen instead (such as Vital Boon). There needs to be reduced cast times on these things, and a lot more damage in order to justify their use. Plus, they also need to be spammable, because in PvE, dps is where it's at.

Compare this Guiding Hands to Warrior's Cunning, another anti-block skill. It's recharge is even longer (though admittedly, it affects more attacks). It's still underpowered, of course, but if you make it more powerful it opens up abuse potential (dervishes are very spike-heavy).

The current Aura of Thorns is worthless. Neither the crippling nor the bleeding is worth the energy (let alone the lost dps from wasting time casting, the lost skill slot, or the attribute point investment).

Melandru and Dwayna are the only ones that would be able to stack, and each one would already provide all the hex or condition removal a party would need. If you're worried about the effect of using all of them together, keep in mind that every avatar you take means a significant loss of dps relative to a damage-focused build.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nechrond

Or Strength of Honor because you get hit by enchantment removal just as you press the button for your attack, for that matter :P I see your point, and you may be right, I'm just not completely sure about it. What did you think about the rest of my ideas?

You mean the "recharge an enchantment, instead of Pious Assault" one? Interesting, but opens up a lot of potential for abuse. Off the top of my head, i can imagine Guiding Hands infinite unblockability spam, Vital Boon spam, and Eternal Aura spam (infinite spamming of it's AoE would be good, but once you consider it's effect of recharging other skills...). Plus, now you need Pious Assault's recharge to be miniscule (or no sustained dps, which is huge in PvE).

Also, I think one thing the dervish really needs is a new elite skill. Specifically, this one:

Freestyle
Elite Shout
Mysticism
5 energy, 30 recharge

For 20 seconds, you rap the following:

"Big scary mofos call me the dervish.
I'm sittin' in my guild hall feeling kinda nervish.
All the ladies say I'm one of them pervs;
It ain't my fault they got all them curves.
And all the fellas think I'm some kinda jerk,
So I just tell 'em that it's one kinda perk.
I ain't never done the Domain of Anguish,
'Cause all the PUGs keep leavin' me to languish.
The White Man's workin' so hard to keep me down,
I ain't never seen the outside of a town!"

Each foe in earshot who does not use Freestyle within 5 seconds after the rap has ended chokes, suffering from Cripple, Weakness, Daze, Cracked Armor, and Deep Wound for 5...90 seconds. They also take 20...100 damage and are knocked down. If your Mysticism rank is 4 or above, you are immune to enemy Freestyles for 90 seconds after this skill is activated.

Nechrond · Aug 30, 2010, 10:46 AM // 10:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The current Aura of Thorns is worthless. Neither the crippling nor the bleeding is worth the energy (let alone the lost dps from wasting time casting, the lost skill slot, or the attribute point investment).

Should keep the crip for PvP though, it's good there.

Quote:

You mean the "recharge an enchantment, instead of Pious Assault" one? Interesting, but opens up a lot of potential for abuse. Off the top of my head, i can imagine Guiding Hands infinite unblockability spam, Vital Boon spam, and Eternal Aura spam (infinite spamming of it's AoE would be good, but once you consider it's effect of recharging other skills...). Plus, now you need Pious Assault's recharge to be miniscule (or no sustained dps, which is huge in PvE).

Actually, I'd bring the recharge down to about 10 or so. This allows you to use it to recharge skills every 10 seconds, which is not the same as "infinite spamming". Being able to use it to get more unblockable strikes is, in my opinion, a valid use. I myself would probably just use it to recharge Heart of Fury .

Quote:

Also, I think one thing the dervish really needs is a new elite skill. Specifically, this one:

Freestyle
Elite Shout
Mysticism
5 energy, 30 recharge

For 20 seconds, you rap the following:

"Big scary mofos call me the dervish.
I'm sittin' in my guild hall feeling kinda nervish.
All the ladies say I'm one of them pervs;
It ain't my fault they got all them curves.
And all the fellas think I'm some kinda jerk,
So I just tell 'em that it's one kinda perk.
I ain't never done the Domain of Anguish,
'Cause all the PUGs keep leavin' me to languish.
The White Man's workin' so hard to keep me down,
I ain't never seen the outside of a town!"

Each foe in earshot who does not use Freestyle within 5 seconds after the rap has ended chokes, suffering from Cripple, Weakness, Daze, Cracked Armor, and Deep Wound for 5...90 seconds. They also take 20...100 damage and are knocked down. If your Mysticism rank is 4 or above, you are immune to enemy Freestyles for 90 seconds after this skill is activated.

Disagree. If they do that, every other class would want a new elite too, and they'd just get something more powerful than the Derv. Instead, this effect should just be added to the Derv dance.

More seriously though, I've been thinking about Reaper's Sweep. How about:
20nrg, 10 recharge.
Elite scythe attack. Lose all your enchantments. Hits for +x..y.z damage and causes Deep Wound. If you targeted a foe with less than 50% HP, all enchantments lost this way are re-applied.

Neither Assa nor Warrior could pay that much for an attack, but with 9+ Mysticism, a Derv could.