Curse

xiv · Jan 06, 2007, 08:05 AM // 08:05

ok well i been gvgin for a while and my guild is currently rank 149 and weve noticed that dervishes seem to be extremely over powered. we try to run balance ino ur gvgs and every time we face dervishes we always git rolled because of their damage output. they are also overpowered witht he avatars. they can keep encahnts off of a target and one can keep waleing on them because they cna't recieve conditions. v not to mention they hit average of a littl over 100 damage aoe per attack. not to mention that just about every where u go will see dervishes no matter if its ha randoms gvg or even team arenas. dervishes r like the next generation of the wamo. my question is h ow do u feel about dervishes.

Apok Omen · Jan 06, 2007, 08:20 AM // 08:20

Well, if you can't beat them, join them. That way, when a guild beats you while running the Dervishes, you can find their weeknesses and play it into your advantage.

You can easily keep a Grenth Derv blind, and a Melandru Derv is just an Assassin with higher HP, immunity to conditions, and slower attacks. IMO,

Dervishes are overpowered, but so are alot of things and they happen to be great counters to Dervishes. They provide great pressure, while at the same time fall easily to pressure.

Shuuda · Jan 06, 2007, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apok Omen

Dervishes are overpowered, but so are alot of things and they happen to be great counters to Dervishes. They provide great pressure, while at the same time fall easily to pressure.

True, Dervishes have many weaknesses:

1.The Shattering assult duel attack.
2. Like all melee, they are useless when blind,, but Daze can be an issue for them aswell.
3. E- denial, like spirit shackels could kill these guys off.

Fallen Hunter · Jan 06, 2007, 08:38 AM // 08:38

Well, I love dervishes. I agree that they are very powerful, but I wouldn't say overpowered. They are very versatile and when played well can be a nightmare to face, but they can also be countered.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuuda

3. E- denial, like spirit shackels could kill these guys off.

Spirit shackles is a nightmare. *shudder*

*lemming* · Jan 06, 2007, 08:44 AM // 08:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuuda

True, Dervishes have many weaknesses:

1.The Shattering assult duel attack.
2. Daze can be an issue for them aswell.
3. E- denial, like spirit shackels could kill these guys off.

Not rly.

Shattering Assault sees zero play, and it's not like most dervishes constantly have 2 enchants on them.

Dazed doesn't stop a dervish from going into Godmode and beating your face in.

Spirit Shackles only sucks if
1. It's covered and there's no mass hex removal in the build
2. You have no hex removal, in which case you were probably doomed to failure anyways.

Shuuda · Jan 06, 2007, 08:58 AM // 08:58

Mystic regeneration, vital boon, there you go, 2 enchantment which was common for a Dervish for shattering assult to own, I don't know why no one uses this skill, it could easily own them Geotanks, and a boon prot if you use expose defences.

HolyHawk · Jan 06, 2007, 09:38 AM // 09:38

We got rolled yesterday by a team with 3 dervishes, a crippling anthem paragon and an order's necro with weapon of remedy. There's just no blind or kiting that dodges that efficiently. Since one of the monks didn't use his elite I'm supposing divert hexes. A spike would have won, but balanced would grieve a lot like we did. It's too much dmg, especially with an avatar of imbalance removing what you use to protect yourself. Hex heavy would probably stand a chance.

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 06, 2007, 09:48 AM // 09:48

This thread only has a few posts, and the amount of misinformation is already making me sad.

Scythes - The biggest issue with scythes is that they're balanced around the idea of a slower swing speed making it okay to have larger damage numbers and AoE. Attack speed is a great way to balance powerful weapons to a certain degree, except that attacks with casting times throw a wrench in the works by completely ignoring weapon attack speed. With scythes, you can throw one in immediately after a normal attack to get a ~250 damage spike on a fleeing target, with the potential for a Deep Wound thrown in. We've seen balance issue after balance issue arise with 3/4s and 1/2s attacks, and dervish scythes are really more of the same. You see the same thing to a lesser extent with Critical Chop, and the only reason Protector's Strike didn't see more play was because warriors lacked the energy to use it as much as they wanted to.

At the same time, the way scythe skills and dervishes in general are balanced, I'm not sure they'd be entirely worth running without the 1/2 attack skills. At best I think scythe skills should take a glancing blow with the nerf bat, while other things need a solid 3-hit combo. If other aspects of the dervish are properly balanced scythes on their own might be just fine.

Avatars - Avatars are kind of a weird mechanic to begin with, but the biggest issue is that they're balanced as if the downtime was a serious drawback. At first glance it seemed like only having the avatar up part of the time would kill the skill, but in practice they're up as long as they need to be to get something done. At the flagstand it's up more than enough time to make an offensive push and break the other team, and if the push fails the dervish can still play defensively in the midline and join in on spikes with the aforementioned 250 damage. Really, why do you care about your avatar going down if the enemy team is already dead or falling back or giving you a boost to chain the avatar again?

Granted the downtime for avatars is a drawback that prevents you from dictacting the terms of the game at all times, but it's not nearly as big as most people make it out to be. For a good team, avatars are up when they need to be up and that's all that matters because they're powerful and long enough to win a skirmish or force the enemy team back.

Basically, these things need to be balanced as if they were up almost all the time. Grenth has been causing the most problems because spammable enchantment removal only ever existed in the form of Order of Apostasy, and the OoA character is unviable in GvG. Enchantments simply aren't balanced around the kind of spammable removal Grenth offers, and it needs a serious drawback on every attack skill to be reasonably balanced with other options. The others are probably okay, though Melandru would still be reasonably strong without the massive health gain.

Harrier's Grasp - While spammable cripple is nothing new, this skill is a little much. Hit either cripple duration or the enchantment duration and it's fine.

Condition reduction - This problem isn't at all unique to dervishes. Its been affecting most melee classes, but dervishes are leading the charge because of Featherfoot Grace. Turning 8s blinds into 2s or 3s is incredibly powerful, and while the skills/mods are fine in themselves I think the stacking gets to be too much. Make condition reduction cap at 50% and blinds/cripples become a much more viable counter to dervish pressure.

Patrograd · Jan 06, 2007, 09:59 AM // 09:59

Avatar Dervishes are extremely imbalanced imo, especially grenth

The damage of a hammer warrior combined with effiicient enchant removal? its too much really. Not sure how you could balance it though. Maybe give shorter duration and faster recharge - like 20 seconds on 20 seconds off. idk

Plus what squidget says above^^

Ex Inferus · Jan 06, 2007, 12:04 PM // 12:04

the Avatars and the Scythe Attacks are overpowered. While the Warriors need to charge up Adrenaline , Dervishes can just spam their cheap attacks with ridiculous recharges and do an insane amount of damage

kvndoom · Jan 06, 2007, 12:18 PM // 12:18

I think the upcoming rebalance will be the most interesting one ever. Anet has a real mess on their hands. Adding 2 new classes and hundreds of new skills every 6 months isn't helping, when we're already seeing old problems not getting fixed before new chapters arrive. How long before it becomes nearly impossible to achieve anything even close to balance?

Scythes are pretty nasty, I've been on the giving and receiving end of them. The fact that a squishy can take >100 damage from a non-skill attack is disturbing. So it's heavy melee pressure. Didn't we already have heavy melee pressure? Did anet feel sorry for all the ridiculed wammos and make a melee class that had to use enchantments to be effective?

Thomas.knbk · Jan 06, 2007, 01:49 PM // 13:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by kvndoom

I think the upcoming rebalance will be the most interesting one ever. Anet has a real mess on their hands. Adding 2 new classes and hundreds of new skills every 6 months isn't helping, when we're already seeing old problems not getting fixed before new chapters arrive. How long before it becomes nearly impossible to achieve anything even close to balance?

Scythes are pretty nasty, I've been on the giving and receiving end of them. The fact that a squishy can take >100 damage from a non-skill attack is disturbing. So it's heavy melee pressure. Didn't we already have heavy melee pressure? Did anet feel sorry for all the ridiculed wammos and make a melee class that had to use enchantments to be effective?

I swear I heard Anet say somewhere they were nto going to add new classes with each chapter. I pray to them to keep that promise. 10 is more than enough.

Lord Mendes · Jan 06, 2007, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

I swear I heard Anet say somewhere they were nto going to add new classes with each chapter. I pray to them to keep that promise. 10 is more than enough.

QFT, that is very true.

Warskull · Jan 06, 2007, 06:11 PM // 18:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apok Omen

Well, if you can't beat them, join them. That way, when a guild beats you while running the Dervishes, you can find their weeknesses and play it into your advantage.

You can easily keep a Grenth Derv blind, and a Melandru Derv is just an Assassin with higher HP, immunity to conditions, and slower attacks. IMO,

Dervishes are overpowered, but so are alot of things and they happen to be great counters to Dervishes. They provide great pressure, while at the same time fall easily to pressure.

This is actually not bad advise. Steal cow's dervish build, learn it, run it. It will teach you a lot about dervishes. Refusing to run dervishes is going to hurt you in the long run.

Pre-kiting is far more important with dervishes than warriors.

tomcruisejr · Jan 06, 2007, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apok Omen

Well, if you can't beat them, join them. That way, when a guild beats you while running the Dervishes, you can find their weeknesses and play it into your advantage.

agreed. remember that you are not prevented to use dervishes if you have nightfall of course.

anyway, just accept the fact that they are a new class and being a new class they bring something new to the table. good thing is that they are currently used for melee damage, so the same counters for warriors still apply.

A User Name · Jan 06, 2007, 09:46 PM // 21:46

I don't think Dervishes really need a nerf. I mean when I see a grenth dervish coming at me pre-kiting is your friend. They are affected by both caster shutdown and melee. Which makes them kinda easy to shutdown if they are that much of a problem to you.
Also people seem to be complaining about high damage and aoe damage. I don't know the exact swing time but I'm sure its close to the hammar which has the additional bonus of KD's. So which is better the KD's or the somewhat higher damage and minium aoe that occurs against any half decent team? If the AoE problem of the scythes are the problem maybe you should consider spreading out? And heaven forbid you go against a SF group *shudders* because the huge difference in AoE damage there. Though on some maps spreading out can be hard, granted. Also as i recall during the last season you saw alot of crit chop users? Should that be nerfed as well? Crit chop was used a heck of alot last season along with B-surge which as I recall shuts down melee damage.
Also Avatar of Meladuru is an excellent counter to SF which people are complaining about as well.
I don't believe that dervishes are overpowered in the current game due to the other insanely powerful skills out there. If they were nerfed then I could see the dervish's power coming down slightly but until then...

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 06, 2007, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by A User Name

They are affected by both caster shutdown and melee.

What kind of caster shutdown are you going to throw at a dervish that he cares about? Serious question.

Avatars last long enough that he can set them up out of interrupt range without issue, and his other skills tend to be short cast or attacks.

Energy denial can reduce the dervishes' effectiveness, but they only need 5 energy for most of their attacks so it won't be that much time before they can start the spam again. Energy denial works on everyone though.

Enchantment removal - I'd have agreed with this before the last balance update, but I don't think some people realize how much the loss of Drain Enchantment changed the dynamic of enchantment removal. No longer can you consistently pull 20s or 25s recharge enchantments at no real cost. Now you'd have to use a Shatter (one of the only viable removals left), which takes the Shatter out of your offensive line and actually comes as a serious sacrifice.

That's all assuming you don't have a Grenth guy of your own. If you do, you can strip any enchantment by walking up and punching the other dervish in the face.

Seamus Finn · Jan 06, 2007, 10:44 PM // 22:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by A User Name

So which is better the KD's or the somewhat higher damage and minium aoe that occurs against any half decent team? If the AoE problem of the scythes are the problem maybe you should consider spreading out?

Last time I checked hammer wars couldn't clear all opposing NPCs at Vod in around 5-10 seconds... neither could assassin to the guy who compares them to melandru's dervs(?!?!?!?)... but yeah, who needs aoe?

A User Name · Jan 06, 2007, 10:52 PM // 22:52

When saying caster shutdown I meant more in RA and TA than anything else where dervish enchant spamming is so common... My bad for no clarifacation there. Though diversion is your solve all for everything. Which technically can count as caster hate, so even that statement wasn't completely untrue.
I also was gonna say e denial but you already pointed out the obvious there.
Though from reading your posts you seem to have more hate towards the grenth avatar more than anything else which would leave me to say the grenths power really comes from the unblockable wild blow.. So maybe adjusting that or something I don't know, but I don't think the dervishes are overpowered with the exception to the very strong avatar that still remains weak to blind.

A User Name · Jan 06, 2007, 10:53 PM // 22:53

@ finn
And since when can a SF ele not do the same thing? I meant that which would you rather have the x secs that a monk spends on his arse during a spike or the pressure of the KD or the slight extra damage from the scythe and AoE it depends on the team build your running.