Curse

Thomas.knbk · Jan 11, 2007, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by ss1986v2

my ideas for the derv:

grenth: boost to 15 energy, add 13% health sac per enchant removed (like a mini OoA), make the derv pick and chose a bit more with what he removes.

This would totally kill it. Something like 3 or 5% health sac is better.

rustysilver · Jan 11, 2007, 10:21 PM // 22:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

Dervishes have limited spike capaibilities (compared to sins). A sin can actually kill a target if left untouched in less than 5 seconds. That's why their melee chain is so fragile.

I don't know about you, but when I play a grenth dervish I can kill a target if left untouched in less than five seconds as well.... Also I can strip the targets enchants so I can kill him even if he has aegis or guardian or shield of absorbtion or spirit bond or reversal of fortune. Can an assassin do that?

Dervishes are way overpowered. The reason is that there isn't an effective enough counter to them. The Grenth is overpowered by its enchant removal which makes spiking targets much easier and the Melandru is overpowered by immune to conditions so there is no effective way to negate its damage unless you use hexes which are less spammable then blind, and unless you have a hex heavy build, the dervishs backline will remove the hexes almost immediately which makes avatar of melandru very hard to counter. Its almost to impossible to spike or kill since most when in form have over 700hp and you can't add deep wound to them.

Also the crippling ability of any dervish along with their insane criticals makes them DPS powerhouses and two dervishes will add a lot more pressure than two warriors will. Yes they only have 60AR, but skills like mystic regeneration, vital boon, and avatar of melandru more than make up for this. As mentioned earlier b/c they run on energy their skills are more spammable than a warriors and b/c they don't need a skill chain like and assassin (and a warriors adrenaline chain) they are over powered.

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 11, 2007, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

2) Attack Skills. Dervish attack recharge very quickly, and they are very powerful. A Melandru Dervish can be ready for a Wearying Strike -> Mystic Sweep spike every 4 seconds!!! An insane refire time for such a powerful spike! By contrast, it takes an axe warrior at least 10 seconds to be ready for Eviscerate -> Critical Chop - probably much more considering how long it takes to build adrenaline in the blind-saturated meta.... even though both spikes deal similar damage! There are other examples as well, but all trace the roots of their extreme power to the fact that Dervishes can use their attacks every time they recharge, becauseall the important ones cost 5e, and Dervishes have 4 pips of energy regeneration. And I havent even begun to take into account possible energy gain from Mysticism.

I actually think this is a decent way of handling an energy attack skill class, so long as the skills are balanced in themselves. Low recharges mean that it isn't possible for a dervish to spam out multiple attacks on recharge for a long period of time. This provides a way for good players to stand out from bad ones.

One thing you'll notice about bad players on pressure builds is that they're constantly in 'Push' mode. From a monk's perspective, the pressure from these teams is always strongest immediately after the gates open, and if you survive the initial barrage they never reach the same level of pressure again. A bad player will sit at 5 energy using all his skills on recharge and continue to output the same mediocre amount of pressure, while a good player will save energy and coordinate with his team in pushes.

This is why thumpers are still fairly dangerous even if the player running them happens to be sitting on his keyboard. They can spam all their attack skills on recharge and never run out of energy, so they never have to stop pushing and attacking unless their team breaks.

Basically, having low recharge attacks rewards good players. Good players will coordinate with their team so the dervishes and mesmers have energy and the warriors have adrenaline and unleash a sudden burst of pressure that breaks you, while bad teams will try to hit their skills on recharge and wonder why nothing's dying. Mechanisms that reward skill are good, but the attacks need to be balanced under the assumption that you actually can spam them on recharge sometimes (just not over extended periods.)

ss1986v2 · Jan 11, 2007, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

This would totally kill it. Something like 3 or 5% health sac is better.

ok, 13% is a bit much. but 3% or 5% doesnt seem like enough. at 500 hp, thats only a 15 or 25 hp sac. i would think that it would have to be 7% or 8% to actually balance the skill. loosing 15 health wouldnt really bother a derv that much, but a 35 or 40 hp loss might.

i mean, its supposed to be a penalty after all. look at OoA, another elite skill which provides a similar effect:

[card]Order of Apostasy[/card]

now thats a hefty penalty! going to 7% or 8% doesnt seem all that impossible for the derv to handle, especially with skills like mystic vigor and mystic regen available to them.

Neo-LD · Jan 12, 2007, 12:22 AM // 00:22

Squidget:

My point about 5 energy attacks, 4 pips of regen, and Mysticism, was that the combination of those elements makes it very hard run yourself out of energy. The fast recharge of dervish attacks, combined with my observation that it is not unreasonable to expect these dervishes to be using those attacks rapidly for long periods of time, makes them much more powerful (too much so) than the attack skills available to warriors.

So to use your terms, I consider Dervishes to be similar to Thumpers in that energy is rarely a problem and they can remain in 'push mode' nearly all the time. Maybe a bit of self-control is needed to spam your attacks *a little* bit less than what is allowed by your recharges. But its honestly not very much.

s w o r d y · Jan 12, 2007, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by ss1986v2

my ideas for the derv:

balthz: this is the tough one. rly dont know where to go with this one. more armor, IAS, armor penetration, i just dont know. if nothing else drop it to 10 energy.
...

avatar of balthazar should have been the derv version of RaO - run fast, attack fast.

Atm it's just an ugly dude.

JYX · Jan 12, 2007, 01:41 AM // 01:41

Make it attack fast then, like RaO? It'd have to be good to choose over unblindable and enchant killing.

In my opinion the energy, cast speed and recharge for dervish attacks combine to make them devastating. They don't have a very decent IAS, but that's not a problem when you can keep firing out low recharge 1/2 second 3/4 second cast attacks on a low recharge. Their damage is linked very much to these skills. If they ran out of energy quickly while using these then there'd be no problem, if the skills recharged slowly then there'd be no problem, if it didn't have a 3/4 second cast clause, then np.

As it is, you completely get around the slow speed of scythes, and can do so for a considerable period of time before running dry. The damage is good because its not being limited very much by any of the traditional setbacks (recharge/cast time/energy).

Grenths is bad, but its a counter to a counter. If grenths was fixed, would that make the attack skill spamming balanced? I don't think it would.

Patccmoi · Jan 12, 2007, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Squidget:

My point about 5 energy attacks, 4 pips of regen, and Mysticism, was that the combination of those elements makes it very hard run yourself out of energy. The fast recharge of dervish attacks, combined with my observation that it is not unreasonable to expect these dervishes to be using those attacks rapidly for long periods of time, makes them much more powerful (too much so) than the attack skills available to warriors.

So to use your terms, I consider Dervishes to be similar to Thumpers in that energy is rarely a problem and they can remain in 'push mode' nearly all the time. Maybe a bit of self-control is needed to spam your attacks *a little* bit less than what is allowed by your recharges. But its honestly not very much.

I dunno about never running out of energy. You played Derv much? If i have 2 x 5E/4s recharge attack skills and some other enchants to keep on myself (say Harrier's Grasp and Featherfoot Grace) the energy is actually damn tight unless i get a lot of enchants ending from another source. As Squidget said, you have to save it and release it in bursts, kinda similar to adrenaline really, otherwise you're just doing medium constant pressure.

4 pips of regen isn't infinite energy even with 5E skills, not at all. In 4s, you recharge 5.33E. If you use 2 x 5E every 4s (without considering everything else you need to cast) you use 10E. In theory, just to sustain those 2 attacks on recharge you need 12 Mysticism and an enchant that you didn't pay for ending on you every 4s. And in reality you have to pay for a lot of other stuff (not many only use 2 skills on their bar) and you rarely have that many enchants ending on you all the time (even with a smite monk, it doesn't happen unless the other team is trying to keep the Derv being smited and covered with RoF constantly. Otherwise even if the monk recast RoF, it doesn't actually end). I think the energy/recharge ratio on most attack skills is fine.

I also think it's fine that Dervs have higher raw damage pressure than warrior considering that's what they do (lack of kd, interrupt, etc.) and if they're meant to be a viable prof they need some strong points.

I fully agree with Grenth being broken too though. I have absolutely no doubt about it.

I also agree that counters might just not be included very well atm. There's one E/N that i use sometimes that really own Dervishes in general with:

Freezing Gust
Ice Spikes
Deep Freeze
Shadow of Fear
Blurred Vision
Ward vs Melee
EProd
X

Even if you have no other hexes in the build, having that in your backline (if possible relatively deep) will just shutdown Derv pressure quite efficiently. Even when they got Divert, unless your team is doing no pressure at all and monks are free to use it on recharge on someone that isn't even getting hurt, they can't usually keep up with the hex stacking. Shadow of Fear SERIOUSLY hurts Derv, especially those without IAS, cause they attack sooo slow (you can basically throw a Diversion on reaction to interrupt their attack skills cause it'll end casting before it hits, on Mes primary ofc). And in that build it's truly spammable, so if it's removed just throw it back. Combination of Blurred-Ward makes them miss a lot, and Ice Spikes-Deep Freeze-Freezing Gust can really make them have a hard time keeping up with their target. If you have 2-3 melee trying to train a target, an E/N like this can make them totally unefficient and there's no 'draw hex' available. Ofc the build has counter too, but in general if you're deep enough and you're careful Dom Mes aren't that much of a problem and you can do a very decent job.

I think that Derv need to be approached differently for counters. Melandru make conditions inefficient, well turn to SPAMMABLE hexes. Long recharge hard shutdown are useless out of a hex build, but something like Shadow of Fear + Water hexes recharge fast enough and are in AOE so it's hard for the other team to constantly clean their melee of it.

Derv are a different pressure type and the meta needs to adapt more than Dervs needing a nerf in general. But Grenth still needs something so that it's not THAT powerful. Even if it had 10% life sac per enchant or +2E on attack skills it would remain a very powerful enchant removal and high pressure char, but at least it would be a little more manageable.

Formosa · Jan 15, 2007, 08:20 AM // 08:20

60 AL characters in the frontline = Asking to be spiked.

Best counter to Dervishes is killing them, which is quite easy.

l2p

Symbol · Jan 15, 2007, 09:36 AM // 09:36

Dervish is 70 AL and you get an easy +10 unconditional AL by using blessed insignia. That isn't quite so easy to take down. Also it's just flat out wrong to claim that their attack skills are spammable on 4 pips. They aren't. 4 pips is barely enough to sustain 1 4s recharge attack. Add another and you run dry very quickly. It's only when you have your teammates supplying you with spammable enchants that you can come close to using them on recharge.

Energy management is very much an issue when you play dervish, especially if you're using one or more 10e enchants.

Lainalil · Jan 16, 2007, 10:38 PM // 22:38

Hey guys, I'm Lain. Leader of We Are Too Cute In [Pink] and we are currently using a build which is dervish heavy. Before I go on, I feel I should say I normally troll these forums and never post but due to my experience with derv since the start of this season it hink I should comment on this. I guess the beginning arguements come down to strength/damage output of dervishes.

Damage Output of Dervishes

Dervishes have the highest melee damage of any class in the game currently. Their scythe's range is 9-41 dmg and is a very local AOE. standard attacks at 13 scythe do the following range on various 'armor' targets on the isle of the nameless. (By the way, largest damage does not necessarily = dps)

Average of 38, some hits lower, some higher. highest crit recorded after destroying 4 targets was 108. The 100 armor target to an average of 27 damage with a highest crit of 58 after 4 targets of its type destroyed. The 80 armor target was taking hits of about 33 with crits as high as 71 dmg.

These are much higher than most other melee classes but also the attacks were much slower. Especially if you do calculate in the bonus damage from their skills they are a deadly tool however... Dervishes are designed for this purpose. A high damage melee tool. Warriors and Assassins both put out damage via a combination of damage and conditions. Dervishes do not have these type of attacks and must sacrifice attack skills for enchants to attain this goal. I believe 'most' but not all of their attack skills are balanced. I also have found that a warrior attacking a dervish can pressure him down faster than the dervish can to the warrior. This takes us to the second conversation topic.

Dervish front line effectiveness

Derv's are designed for the frontline, just like assassins. However, just like assassins they have 70 armor and don't have a bonus damage absorption rune like warriors. Grenth can easily be spiked down if timed properly (as I have felt... many, many times.) Melandru is another story however, out of form there is an EASY chance to add dp to a front line character. Of course, discussion of Grenth/Melandru brings us to topic C.

Dervish Forms

Forms are slightly imba but I truly believe this is nothing serious. Most guilds rely on one of the following. Hexes, conditions, pressure, spike. Good guilds rely on several at one time to be effective. It takes only one to two anti-melee hexes to shut down any form. Whether it's grenth or melandru. The biggest complaint about Melandru comes to "I can't cripple it and I can't blind it". This leads me to the topic of "IMBA vs. IMBA" I feel no sympathy for bsurgers complaining about Melandru since well, bsurge is imba out the wazzoo. I'll tell you a story of how we made our build after this. It's true, Melandru can't be blinded but if you're revolving your skill and build around a skill like Bsurge what happens when you get sig of humilitied or your skill diversioned? Furthermore, BSurge is about as imba as it gets. Grenth however, is easily shut down. BSurge or blfash is an easy counter to grenth and again he is effected by hexes just like any other melee character. Smart playing on both teams, hex removals at key moments, proper spike calls, etc. can overcome any form of another pressure, which is what makes this game great. I truly believe Grenth is IMBA in a small sense but those who complains imply are overly inept at shutting down melee because they've never had a real need to learn before. Enchant removal is rampant with grenth but alot of the reasons players are needing to remove enchants are the abundance of abused enchants like SoA and Stoneflesh Aura. It's basically Order of Apostacy on a single character instead of a party. A smaller health sac may be a good balance. Regardless, don't forget, there were already skills similiar to grenth that were harder to shut down a long time ago.

Oh yeah, the story about our build: We were running 1 grenth, 2 warriors, 2 mesmers but... unfortunately no matter how hard we tried to make that work properly bsurge was EVERYWHERE. Hence the two melandru's. the rest of the build has evolved overtime but as soon as bsurge takes a nerf, the 2 melandru's are going back to warroirs because warriors are better at holding a target in place, pressuring htem down, and adding conditions than derv's.

What I see here is over-reliance on bsurge and not enough realization of other shutdowns because bsurge is so easy and abuse right now. I can't blame anyone for that either though. You should use what works. It's not your fault the skills are broken right now, just be ready for when that change does come.

-Lainalil
Leader of: We Are Too Cute In [Pink]

MaaKotka · Jan 17, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36

I agree totally with Lainalil. I think there is not much more to add. Right now I'm pretty happy when I see enemy team having dervishes, because last couple of weeks our guild has rarely lost to a team having dervishes as theri offence. And we play also dervish pressure build. Most trouble we have with those thumper pressure builds and eurospike if they spike faster than our infuser can react and while playing at their map where splitting is very hard.

Isil`Zha · Jan 18, 2007, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Now, what are the supposed weakpoints of these Dervishes? You know, the things that are supposed to balance them out so all those strenghts are acceptable? Well lets see... they often have no interupts, knockdowns, or teleports... they often have less solo-ability than a properly built warrior... and thats about all I can think of. Now, believe me, all of those put together, particularly the part about no interupts or knockdowns, would normally be enough to balance these suckers out... if not for....

Slow attack speed combined with a huge damage range where a good 25% of a Dervish's regular attacks do very little damage... and low armor, so significant spiking can work. In my experience though, Dervishes can easily last as long as a warrior, if not longer, in most situations thanks to powerful self-heals. Also, Dervishes have very few conditions they can inflict, they rely almost solely on raw damage, so things like protective spirit or weakness really hurt a Dervish's ability to deal out damage. I think it's pretty balanced out.

However, I do love being able to take on two Evisc/Exe Warriors at once and win.

Not my fault if they both stand in the arc of my Scythe... And no, this wasn't using a gimmicky Dervish tank build either.

Neo-LD · Jan 18, 2007, 12:55 AM // 00:55

I can agree that BSurge is also imba, but all this means to me is that BSurge and Avatar of Grenth are the first two skills on the chopping block because they are so incredibly ridiculous. Other than that, I cannot agree with anything in your post, Lainalil. I believe that you defend dervishes only because they are one of the sole reasons for your guild's success this season. This is not to say that my guild doesnt abuse broken things as well - indeed, our current build features eurospike, feigned neutrality splitters, and blinding surge, and we are doing quite well with it - but at least Im willing to say what is plainly obvious: I wish to god that those elements of the game did not exist, even the very ones I use, because the metagame right now is incredibly stale, skilless, and repetitive. I will elaborate:

Quote:

Dervishes are designed for this purpose. A high damage melee tool. Warriors and Assassins both put out damage via a combination of damage and conditions. Dervishes do not have these type of attacks and must sacrifice attack skills for enchants to attain this goal...

Dervishes do not inflict conditions? Harriers Grasp. Wearying Strike. Maybe you've heard of them. The simple fact is that dervishes spam the two most important offensive conditions at an out-of-control pace, all while dealing incredible damage on every swing, with no attack speed problems in sight due to 3/4s attacks.

Quote:

Derv's are designed for the frontline, just like assassins. However, just like assassins they have 70 armor and don't have a bonus damage absorption rune like warriors. Grenth can easily be spiked down if timed properly (as I have felt... many, many times.) Melandru is another story however, out of form there is an EASY chance to add dp to a front line character.

First of all, assasins are definately NOT meant for the frontline. Secondly, while Dervishes are spikeable, this is hardly more true for them than it is for warriors, since the majority of damage in modern spikes is armor-ignoring. Just because there is a (feeble) counter for something, it does not make it balanced. Think of Blinding Surge. I could use nothing but Extend Enchantments + Sight Beyond Sight Dervishes and BSurge would be completely worthless against me. That is a completely legitimate strategy anyone could use right now if they wanted to. Does that make BSurge balanced?

Quote:

The biggest complaint about Melandru comes to "I can't cripple it and I can't blind it". This leads me to the topic of "IMBA vs. IMBA" I feel no sympathy for bsurgers complaining about Melandru since well, bsurge is imba out the wazzoo.

I already said that just because something has a counter, it does not make it balanced. But the larger problem with the argument I just quoted is that it fails to acknowledge the larger picture. The complaint against Dervishes as a whole is: Once a train is on someone, you cant blind them, cripple them, prot their target, or kite them. Meanwhile, their target is being nuked by about 5 players. The only option left is to just try to match the damage point for point with healing, which is impossible to do for very long against such overwhelming, unmitigated damage. Almost every single defense that works against warriors does not work against dervishes. DONT tell me that Dervishes are balanced because hexes work on them. Again, just because there is a feeble counter, doesnt mean that its balanced.

Quote:

I truly believe Grenth is IMBA in a small sense but those who complains imply are overly inept at shutting down melee because they've never had a real need to learn before

Im sorry but this really got my blood moving. Its the whole reason I even bothered replying, really. Look, just about everyone of note knows how to mitigate damage through kiting, protting, conditioning, hexing, warding, etc. Sure there are a few nubs who dont, but who cares about these people in this conversation? The only thing that matters is that virtually NONE of the counters that affect every other physical damage source in the game work effectively against a dervish train, even when employed by top notch players. To imply that the complaints against dervishes are limited to only noobs who dont know what kiting means is a blatant fallacy.

Further, I believe that exactly the opposite is true. To be specific, anyone that supports dervishes in their current form does so only because they are "overly inept" at executing a pressure offense in a metagame devoid of Avatar of Grenth and Melandru, and dont want to lose them. Before Nightfall, pressure was a rare talent; reserved only exceptional teams with exceptional players. Im talking KGYU Physical/Degen. QQ E-denial. Things like that. Worse teams trying to emulate their builds would falter and just hammer away pointlessly for 25 minutes, but really good teams would wipe teams brutally and make it look easy.

Pre-nightfall pressure required incredible timing, awareness, reflexes, and mind-reading... summed up, it required talent. But now look. Anybody with half of a brain can just line up some dervishes and just about anything else that deals damage, and fire away at the same target until it drops. As you can see, this strategy is quite a bit more simple than the complicated workings of previous pressure schemes - and consequently, just about everyone understands how to do it, whereas very few people understand how to use previous pressure builds. By all accounts, such a basic and almost childish strategy as 'lets just hit the same guy over and over until he dies' shouldnt work. But it does, because almost nothing can stop it right now.

Now, dont take this as an attack upon what you choose to run right now. Play to win, run whatever you think gives you the best chance. Dervish train is certainly a strong option right now. But for the love of kittens, dont try to delusion yourself or others that Dervishes ought to stay as they are.

v o i d · Jan 18, 2007, 01:06 AM // 01:06

Dervishes are so ridiculously overpowered, that it becomes frustrating.

tomcruisejr · Jan 18, 2007, 01:15 AM // 01:15

Melandrus Derv with Hex Breaker = god

MaaKotka · Jan 18, 2007, 01:32 AM // 01:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Im sorry but this really got my blood moving. Its the whole reason I even bothered replying, really. Look, just about everyone of note knows how to mitigate damage through kiting, protting, conditioning, hexing, warding, etc. Sure there are a few nubs who dont, but who cares about these people in this conversation? The only thing that matters is that virtually NONE of the counters that affect every other physical damage source in the game work effectively against a dervish train, even when employed by top notch players. To imply that the complaints against dervishes are limited to only noobs who dont know what kiting means is a blatant fallacy.

As far as I know, only melandrus dervishes are not affected by any conditions and d/rt grenth dervishes are not affected by blind, cripple still works for him. Every other counters still work. Kiting is actually pretty effective against dervishes, because if they want to stay effective, they have to stop pretty often to recast their enchantments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Pre-nightfall pressure required incredible timing, awareness, reflexes, and mind-reading... summed up, it required talent. But now look. Anybody with half of a brain can just line up some dervishes and just about anything else that deals damage, and fire away at the same target until it drops. As you can see, this strategy is quite a bit more simple than the complicated workings of previous pressure schemes - and consequently, just about everyone understands how to do it, whereas very few people understand how to use previous pressure builds. By all accounts, such a basic and almost childish strategy as 'lets just hit the same guy over and over until he dies' shouldnt work. But it does, because almost nothing can stop it right now.

This makes me feel actually a good player even I think I'm just a mediocore

I have prettymuch ran somekind of balanced or split team in gvg (anyway somekind of pressure) since I started gvg:ing.

I'm not saying that grenth and melandrus forms aren't overpowered, but I think they are not that IMBA what most people say they are. They should be tuned little bit down and mayby that life sacrificing thing to grenths form which is suggested in couple of posts already. Rest of the dervishes skills are mostly farily well balanced.

And by the way, that sight beyond sight is little too good for non primary rt's in my opinion, but that is bit offtopic.

Kenagalaz · Jan 18, 2007, 02:06 AM // 02:06

then copy the build an run it? you did that with QQ's build didn't u? if it's so simple, why aren't all the top guilds running it?

s w o r d y · Jan 18, 2007, 02:16 AM // 02:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

I completely agree. Really, the fact that you can just snare a target and pressure it by just staying on it is pretty stupid. WTB PERMANENT SKILL BALANCES PLZ. .

Monk enchants aren't the only defense in the game. Dervish pressure is easily countered if you want to build that way. People aren't adaptable enough to look deeper into the game to use what is there to counter this stuff

Kenagalaz · Jan 18, 2007, 02:23 AM // 02:23

wards, spirits, hex, stance, skill, echo, shout, chant, weapon spell, mesmer, kd, tele, ...